The first round of the International Championship is in the books and the second round of the tournament will be played out in full in China on Tuesday on a day where the tournament starts to get serious.
Whoever wins on Tuesday will be into the last 16 of what is a big money tournament and will be eyeing up a serious payday and move up the rankings as we head towards the weekend. That should ensure some decent action for us to enjoy.
Afternoon Session
The world number one Judd Trump is the headline draw in the first session of the day. The Shanghai Masters and Saudi Masters winner will go up against Joe O’Connor while on the other main table Ronnie O’Sullivan will look to make progress when he meets the home star Pang Junxu. Mark Selby is another high ranked player on show in the opening part of the play. He will meet the competent Thai player Noppon Saengkham while Shaun Murphy goes up against the former Shootout champion Chris Wakelin. Gary Wilson is hoping to turn his season around this week and he faces Robbie Williams while the other three matches see Ali Carter going up against Jackson Page, Si Jiahui playing Jack Lisowski in what could be the pick of the games in this session while John Higgins takes on Matthew Stevens in the other.
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Evening Session
The defending champion Zhang Anda continues his title defence in the second part of the action on Tuesday. In a session full of Chinese players he faces a fellow countryman in Lyu Haotian while elsewhere the world champion Kyren Wilson meets Wu Yize in what should be a good game. The other Chinese superstar, Ding Junhui, will look to make it into the last 16 when he goes up against Hossein Vafaei while the former world number one Mark Allen takes on the Wuhan Open winner Xiao Guodong. Mark Williams plays Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in what could be the pick of the matches to watch in the session while Neil Robertson meets Barry Hawkins in another. The other two matches see Ryan Day facing Xu Si and then there is another all-Chinese battle as Yuan Sijun faces Jiang Jun.
Betting
The odds for most of these matches look about right but Ali Carter arrived in China this week without having done a huge amount since he won the Championship League at the beginning of the season and I wonder if he is vulnerable to Jackson Page, ironically the man he beat to win that title. Since then the best that Carter has done is reach the last 16 in Wuhan but there has been little in his scoring in his two matches this week that suggests that he is firing on all cylinders.
Page is someone who relies a lot on confidence but a win over Dave Gilbert in the previous round tells us that he is hitting the ball well because Gilbert has the potential to blow anyone who isn’t on their game away so the fact that Page won that bodes well. The longer Page goes in a tournament the better he gets and with conditions in this event looking like they are good for scoring that should benefit Page too. I think he’s overpriced at 7/4 against a Carter who isn’t completely on top form.
Tips
Back J.Page to beat A.Carter for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with William Hill
Back him here:
