The second round of the Northern Ireland Open concludes and the entire third round will be played out inside the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on Thursday as we play down to the quarter final stage of the draw in the second Home Nations event of the season.
Everyone left in the tournament will appear at least once on Thursday but some players will be on the baize twice on what is often the busiest and one of the toughest days of any Home Nations competition.
Morning Session
We do have a morning session on Thursday which sees all three tables being filled with second round matches. The main table will see Barry Hawkins back on show when the European Masters champion takes on a former winner of that tournament in the form of Jimmy Robertson. They will meet on the main table while on the outside ones we will see Anthony McGill going up against Noppon Saengkham and Robbie Williams looks to follow up his win over his namesake Mark when he meets the English Open finalist Zhang Anda.
Afternoon Session
The first part of the afternoon sees the second round of the tournament coming to a close and on the main table Judd Trump continues his quest for a third successive ranking event success. Ian Burns is the man who will be in front of him. Two decent matches take place on the other tables in this part of the day with Joe Perry looking to play as well as he did in his win over Michael White on Tuesday when he takes on Hossein Vafaei. Dave Gilbert meets the Wuhan Open semi-finalist Lyu Haotian in the other game.
We begin the last 16 of the tournament in the latter part of the afternoon session. Shaun Murphy will be the first star looking to book his spot in the quarter final but he will need to overcome the challenge of the Shootout champion Chris Wakelin in order to get there. Ricky Walden will be eyeing up another Home Nations quarter final when he takes on Xing Zihao while on the other table another tour rookie in Stan Moody looks to make a maiden last eight clash when he takes on Yuan Sijun.
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Evening Session
We don’t know the complete line up for the evening session yet but we do know that the last 16 will be completed over the two sets of matches. On the main table in the first part of the evening we will see Jack Lisowski looking to make another ranking event quarter final when he takes on a player in Aaron Hill who made that stage of the Wuhan Open recently. On the other table the winners of the morning matches between Robbie Williams and Zhang Anda as well as Barry Hawkins and Jimmy Robertson will meet each other.
Later in the evening the main table is likely to be occupied by Judd Trump assuming he overcomes the challenge of Ian Burns earlier in the day. If he does he will meet the winner of the clash between Anthony McGill and Noppon Saengkham. Stephen Maguire is already into the evening action and he awaits the winner of the Joe Perry vs Hossein Vafaei match. Rory McLeod is also already through and the winner of Dave Gilbert and Lyu Haotian will be his opponent for a place in the quarter final.
Betting
I’ll go with one bet over the course of Thursday in the matches we already know the identity of. That comes in the form of the Wuhan Open semi-finalist Lyu Haotian who I think will come past Dave Gilbert. Gilbert outlasted Matthew Stevens in a deciding frame on Wednesday morning but then spoke about how issues off the table are stopping him from putting in as much practice as he would want to which we comments that left me feeling he was vulnerable here.
These two have met twice this season already when Haotian won easily at the European Masters before Gilbert got revenge in a deciding frame at the British Open. Since then, the Chinese player has reached the last four of the Wuhan Open where tournament winners Chris Wakelin and Ronnie O’Sullivan were among his victims, as was the English Open finalist Zhang Anda, and he has had two good wins over Ashley Carty and Tom Ford in this tournament. He has made four centuries in those two tournaments and over the course of the season he has compiled 29 breaks of 50 or more. There might not be much in this one but the Chinese player might be mentally stronger and can get the job done here.
Tips
Back L.Haotian to beat D.Gilbert for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Bet365
