The first round of the main draw of the Northern Ireland Open continues inside the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on Tuesday as we continue to make our way through the opening Home Nations event of the snooker season.
We saw a host of big names cruise into the second round on Monday and plenty more will take to the baize over the three sessions of action on Tuesday each aiming to make it through to the last 32 themselves.
Morning Session
Ding Junhui will get the main table attention in the opening session of the day. The Chinese star is looking to rise through the rankings and so there is plenty of significance on his clash with a Michael White who himself is looking to move up the order of merit having got his tour card back ahead of this campaign. Lu Ning was a win away from winning a first ranking event title at the Championship League at the beginning of the season and he’ll look to move closer to another final when he takes on Hammad Miah while in the other game Matt Selt meets Pang Junxu.
Afternoon Session
John Higgins will be the headline act in the first of the two afternoon sets of matches. The Scot cut a pretty forlorn figure even after beating Fergal O’Brien in his qualifying match on Monday and will need to play well to beat Jackson Page. Barry Hawkins has been to the final of this tournament before and he’ll look to pick up a first win on the week after receiving a bye through the qualifying competition. He meets Louis Heathcote while the other game sees Tom Ford going up against Scott Donaldson.
Jimmy White has qualified for the main draw of a tournament and he is on the TV table in the second part of the afternoon. He takes on the Championship League winner Luca Brecel in a high profile clash. Shaun Murphy is on show in this session as well. He goes up against the Welsh player Jamie Clarke while the other match in the later part of the session should be a good one as Dave Gilbert goes up against Noppon Saengkham.
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Evening Session
Judd Trump is the star act in the evening session and he will actually be on the TV table in the first of the two sets of matches. He meets the Irish player Aaron Hill who will be looking forward to playing in what is effectively a home event. It is definitely a home event for Gerard Greene and he’ll look to make it three Northern Ireland players through to the last 32 when he takes on the Gibraltar Open champion Robert Milkins. Anthony McGill is also on show when he goes up against the Belgian player Julien Leclercq.
Kyren Wilson is the highest ranked player taking to the baize in the second part of the evening session. He will go up against Sean O’Sullivan in what you would imagine would be a comfortable assignment for the European Masters winner. Stuart Bingham is another top player looking to make it through to the next round. He faces David Lilley while the Welsh Open champion Joe Perry also takes to the baize when he meets the amateur Daniel Wells.
Betting
Dave Gilbert hasn’t had the start to the season that he would have wanted and while we know that he is a class act, we also know that he is very much a confidence player and having lost to Lyu Haotian in the opening round of the British Open and Xu Si in Scottish Open qualifying in the last couple of weeks there can’t be much in the way of confidence oozing through his body right now. The same certainly can’t be said of his opponent Noppon Saengkham.
The Thai player made it through to the semi-finals of the British Open recently where he took care of Zhao Xintong, Jordan Brown and Jamie Jones along the way before running into a juggernaut in the shape of Mark Allen. He then won his Scottish Open qualifier last week so he’ll be heading to Belfast in decent shape. Saengkham has a decent enough tactical game and he is a good scorer and against a Gilbert who lets you know exactly what he is thinking at all times I think the more confident Thai is the one to be on here.
Tips
Back N.Saengkham to beat D.Gilbert for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
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