The qualifying competition for the Northern Ireland Open continues at Ponds Forge in Sheffield on Thursday when another 24 hopefuls head to the venue looking to pick up the win they need to head to Belfast next week.
We are beginning to see the more likely challengers showing their hand in this qualifying campaign the longer the week goes on with former world champion Graeme Dott, Joe Perry and Marco Fu among the players on show.
Morning Session
We are back to a morning loaded with Chinese talent on Thursday with the British Open semi-finalist Xiao Guodong the leading player on show. He has been in decent form over the last month or so and will be looking to confirm that when he takes on his countryman Yuan Sijun. Xu Si is another Chinese player taking to the baize in the morning session. He has a date with Alexander Ursenbacher to overcome, while the final Chinese talent in action will be Xing Zihao. He faces the Yorkshireman David Grace who will be looking to make the most of a local qualifying competition.
Early Afternoon Session
The Thai player Noppon Saengkham is the man who is given the honour of headlining the first of the two afternoon sessions on Thursday. He will be looking to make it through to another main venue when he goes up against his fellow Asian player Himanshu Jain. Pang Junxu is another player who is highly ranked who is on show in this part of the day. He will take on Ian Burns but the pick of the three matches will be the one which sees Marco Fu going up against the Welsh player Jamie Jones.
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Later Afternoon Session
The former European Masters winner Jimmy Robertson heads up the second part of the afternoon. The Sussex cueist will take on one of the amateurs that has been included in the qualifying draw in the form of Sydney Wilson. Matt Selt has been in good touch in recent times and he looks to qualify for Northern Ireland in this afternoon session too. Andy Lee will be the man who is out to stop him while Aaron Hill will look to build on a run to the quarter finals in Wuhan last week when he faces the veteran David Lilley.
Evening Session
We have a really good evening session to look forward to as well on Thursday. The former Welsh Open champion Joe Perry is the highest ranked player on show in it and he’ll look to justify that position when he goes up against Ishpreet Singh Chadha, who is proving a capable challenger this term. The former world champion Graeme Dott also looks to book his ticket to Belfast in this session when he meets Oliver Lines while two men who are back on the tour this season collide in the other game when Martin O’Donnell faces off with Daniel Wells.
Betting
I’ll go with the one bet over the course of Thursday and that comes in the evening session. Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of Daniel Wells but I think he might be vulnerable to a Martin O’Donnell who has had a decent couple of weeks. Wells has just found the going a little tough in recent times and is short of wins and while I think he’s the better player of the two overall, right now I think the O’Donnell form lines are better and he appeals more at even money.
In the last couple of weeks O’Donnell has taken care of Stephen Maguire and Mark Selby en route to the quarter finals of the English Open and then he went out to the Wuhan Open and beat John Higgins before losing to Aaron Hill in the second round. While that result doesn’t look fantastic, Hill had a couple of centuries and played very well. O’Donnell has been scoring pretty well in those tournaments and it just feels like he comes here in better form of the two.
Tips
Back M.O’Donnell to beat D.Wells for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betway
