The first round of the Northern Ireland Open concludes on Tuesday and the second round of the tournament gets underway inside the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on a day where we see another three sessions of action.
We have seen some big names grace the tables already this week and plenty more of them come to battle on Tuesday either in first round or second round action so we should be in for a cracking day of snooker to enjoy.
Morning Session
We only have two matches in the morning session on Monday with both of them coming from the first round of the draw. Ali Carter is very much the leading player on show in the first session when The Masters finalist from the beginning of the year goes up against Ma Hailong. The other match will be on table two and will see the English Open runner-up Wu Yize looking to make progress in another Home Nations event when he takes on the British Open semi-finalist Oliver Lines in a decent looking match.
Afternoon Session
The afternoon session consists of two sets of matches with the main table in the first one being occupied by the world champion Kyren Wilson, who gets his tournament underway. David Grace will be the man looking to cause what would be a pretty big upset. Chris Wakelin made the final here a year ago and he begins his quest to get back to the title match over on table two in this session when he takes on the Hungarian youngster Bulcsu Revesz.
Mark Williams is the main man on show in the second part of the afternoon as the first round of the tournament concludes with another pair of matches. Williams will take on his countryman Jamie Clarke for a place in the last 32 of the event. Over on the other table we have two Thai players meeting in what should be an entertaining encounter when Noppon Saengkham takes on a Thepchaiya Un-Nooh who can be devastating on his day.
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Evening Session
We move into the second round of the tournament in the evening session and we start with three games in the first part of the night. The defending champion Judd Trump will occupy the main table when he takes on Matthew Selt. Robert Milkins will look to make it into the last 16 on one of the other tables when he meets Tian Pengfei while the other game was expected to feature Mark Selby but his conqueror Louis Heathcote is the man who will take on Jimmy Robertson.
There are two matches in the second part of the evening session to round off a decent day of action on Tuesday. Shaun Murphy will be the leading light on the main table when he faces off against a Zhou Yuelong who is very competent on any day but particularly in a best of seven. Stuart Bingham will be looking to make progress in the other match. The World Championship semi-finalist from last season goes up against Mark Davis who had a good win over Gary Wilson in the opening round.
Betting
Zhou Yuelong isn’t having the best season of his career and although he came through the opening round against Dominic Dale, the fact that he had to come from 3-1 down to win 4-3 doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the Chinese potter is about to come back to his best form. He has already lost 6-2 to Shaun Murphy in the Shanghai Masters quarter final this season and since then his form has been incredibly patchy so I’ve got to think this is a tough assignment for him.
Murphy had a good win over Jiang Jun in the previous round and he is having a really good season. He is based in Ireland these days so this is a big tournament for him and I think he can move into the last 16 in style here. Murphy is hitting the ball incredibly well, whenever I have seen him interviewed he has looked a fairly confident figure which I always think is a sign. Murphy had a ton in his first round win and looks to be scoring well and I think he’ll have a comfortable path through here.
Tips
Back S.Murphy (-1.5 frames) to beat Z.Yuelong for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
