The first round of the German Masters qualifying concludes on Saturday and the second and final round begins on a busy Saturday of action in Wigan.
We’ve seen some big names come and go in this series so far but the biggest of them all returns for his season bow on Saturday afternoon as Ronnie O’Sullivan begins his quest to qualify for Germany when he takes on Hamza Akbar.
Along with O’Sullivan other established names such as Mark Allen, Joe Perry, Matthew Stevens and the recent UK Championship finalist Liang Wenbo all begin their qualifying attempts over the morning and afternoon sessions on Saturday.
In truth there isn’t a lot I like in the morning session. Just a quick look down the odds and there are a number of one sided matches expected and with not much competition in the handicap lines there isn’t really a lot to go at although there is one which stands out.
That is Rod Lawler. He takes on Craig Steadman who is showing nothing like the form which got him to the Crucible at the end of last season. In contrast Lawler beat Judd Trump in Gibraltar last weekend so he’s going well and he is the more consistent player of these two. He is a little short at 4/6 but he’s good double potential to add to something later in the day.
While the eyes will be on Ronnie O’Sullivan in the afternoon the best bet could well come on another table. I’ve mentioned a few times how Jamie Cope has shown some signs of a return to form and while he’s more competitive than he was he’s still losing albeit in tighter matches.
Cope faces Stuart Carrington here and Carrington has been going along nicely this season. He has made the quarter final of one European Tour event and the last 16 of another which is decent form. It is certainly better form than Cope’s one win since the end of September and that was only a deciding frame win over Rory McLeod in the UK Championship.
Carrington is a shade under evens which looks a little too big given the respective form of the two men going into this weekend.
The evening session sees the second round begin where everyone involved will be playing their final match before Christmas and will hope to give themselves a festive boost by winning and qualifying for the main event in Germany.
World champions past and present take to the baize in the form of Shaun Murphy and Stuart Bingham. Both will be expected to win their matches but as we saw with Neil Robertson on Friday nothing is guaranteed in the world these days. Even so the odds on their opponents don’t really interest me.
There are a few places where I am interested in the odds though. The first is on Mark King in his match against Anthony McGill. King is in some nice form at the minute which includes a 5-0 win over Jimmy White on Friday night.
He goes into this match having dispatched McGill in a European Tour event last month which is a positive and when they met in the World Championship qualifying last season McGill was in good form and King wasn’t really and yet the Essex potter still took that match to a deciding leg so there is enough to give King support, and indeed our money, at odds against.
Another odds against pick I’m prepared to chance is the youngster Zhou Yuelong who takes on Barry Hawkins. The Yuelong story is a well read one and one which I’ve highlighted on a few occasions on bets I’ve had on him since I began this blog.
All the pressure is on Hawkins in this match and he hasn’t always coped well with pressure in his career particularly when he is struggling for results which he has done in the really big tournaments this season.
We saw at the Champion of Champions that Yuelong is no respecter for reputation and we also saw how good his game is and he just looks grossly overpriced at 5/2 in this match.
Finally I’m going to add one to Rod Lawler for a nice priced double and that is another Chinese player in Zhao Xintong. Xintong is an extremely talented player and flew past Cao Yupeng on Friday with some sublime snooker and a raft of decent breaks.
He takes on an Ashley Hugill who will be absolutely buzzing after sending shockwaves through the sport in the first round when he took care of Neil Robertson but this match comes pretty quickly off the back of that one and he could still be in a bit of a whirlwind of emotions.
Even if emotion doesn’t come into it Xintong is the better player of the two and combined with Lawler the pair make a perfectly attractive double at a very solid odds against price.
Back S.Carrington to beat J.Cope for a 4/10 stake at 1.90 with Boylesports
Back M.King to beat A.McGill for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with Paddy Power
Back Z.Yuelong to beat B.Hawkins for a 3/10 stake at 3.50 with Sportingbet
Back R.Lawler to beat C.Steadman x Z.Xintong to beat A.Hugill for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with William Hill
Blog snooker YTD: +76.31pts
