The opening day of action at the Northern Ireland Open sees the majority of the held over qualifying matches played out on a Sunday which sees plenty of big names on show on the three tables inside the Waterfront Hall in Belfast.
These Home Nations events are getting more and more competitive by the season and all of the big names will be eager to win their match and make it into the main draw. Some of them have nasty tests to overcome across the day.
Morning Session
As is often the case with snooker at the minute, the morning session is littered with Chinese players with the pick of them the highest ranked player on show. That is Zhao Xintong and he’ll get his campaign underway with a clash against fellow Chinese player Lyu Haotian. Kyren Wilson is the second highest ranked player up in the morning session. He takes on the former world champion Ken Doherty while the other match on show sees two more Chinese stars in action as Yan Bingtao faces Liang Wenbo.
Afternoon Session
As ever in a Home Nations day we have two sets of matches in the afternoon and the evening and it will be the former champion Judd Trump up first on the TV table when he goes up against Rod Lawler in a real clash in styles. Shaun Murphy will be looking to make it into the main draw on one of the other tables. That will have to come at the expense of Xu Si who beat Dave Gilbert in Scottish Open qualifying last week. The other table will be occupied by Ricky Walden and Xiao Guodong in the pick of the games in this first session.
Mark Selby will be the highest ranked player on show in the second part of the afternoon session. He will be on the TV table in this slot of games when he takes on Reanne Evans for the second time this season after the two met in the World Mixed Doubles recently. Neil Robertson is a very big name to be in action on the second table. He meets Fraser Patrick for a place in the main draw. The other game is actually a pre-qualifier to get into the qualifying round between two local amateurs. That sees Joel Connolly going up against Robbie McGuigan.
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Evening Session
We have a stacked evening session to enjoy on Sunday with the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan headlining it. The newly crowned Hong Kong Masters champion will be first up on the TV table when he takes on the German player Lukas Kleckers. Two other class acts will occupy the other two tables. Mark Williams has toured the world in the last week having been a late call up for the Hong Kong event. He will go up against Peter Lines here while Barry Hawkins will aim to follow up his run to the final of the European Masters this term when he meets Farakh Ajaib.
The final match on the TV table on Sunday will see the defending champion and home star Mark Allen getting his title defence underway. Chang Bingyu will be the man assigned the task of being a party pooper. The Championship League winner Luca Brecel will begin his quest for the title in this session as well. He meets Joe O’Connor while on the other table Stuart Bingham faces off against the confident Allan Taylor.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount of value on show on the opening day of the tournament. The top 16 players are all heavy favourites for their matches and in truth a good number of them should really win with a bit in hand so finding bets isn’t the easiest job in the world. I will go with one though and that comes in the match between Luca Brecel and Joe O’Connor in the evening session where I fancy Brecel will have too much for the Englishman.
Brecel has hit the ground running this season when he took down the Championship League to open it up and he is usually good for a few wins in the Home Nations event because his aggressive style is in keeping with the best way to play these best of sevens. The one negative is that O’Connor played in the Scottish Open last week but it was only the week before that Brecel was involved in the British Open so that is only a minor concern. I think the Belgian can win this no worse than 4-2.
Tips
Back L.Brecel (-1.5 frames) to beat J.O’Connor for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with William Hill
Back him here:
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