The second round of the Northern Ireland Open is to be played across another bumper day of action in Belfast on Wednesday as this event starts to ship victims thick and fast. With the format short and sweet we’ve seen a number of shocks in the tournament already and we can expect more as we go along.
As with the first two days we have three sessions on Wednesday with some of the very biggest names in the sport gracing the main tables to make sure we have plenty of decent snooker to absorb.
Morning Session
This session follows the path of the first two days with eight matches in it. The main tables will be graced by Peter Ebdon and Adam Duffy along with Jamie Cope and Luca Brecel in two appealing matches.
The outside tables stage Kurt Dunham vs Scott Donaldson, Zak Surety against Hossein Vafaei Ayouri, Kurt Maflin against Alex Borg and Josh Boileau’s clash with Hamza Akbar. There is also Fergal O’Brien taking on Mitchell Mann and Zhou Yuelong versus Allan Taylor.
Afternoon Session
We begin the afternoon on the main tables with John Higgins against Sam Craigie and the battle between Jimmy Robertson and Joe Perry. Those should be high scoring matches which is good.
Away from the cameras we have Alan McManus against Sanderson Lam, Zhang Anda against Chris Wakelin, Michael White up against Chen Zhe, Duane Jones versus Fraser Patrick, Robin Hull taking on Lee Walker and Andrew Higginson against Gary Wilson.
The next set of matches have Michael Holt and Barry Hawkins on one TV table with Mark Allen and Michael Georgiou on the other. The non-TV games are between Akani Songsermsawad and Mark Davis and Tom Ford and Dominic Dale.
The afternoon concludes on the main tables with Kyren Wilson taking on Jordan Brown and Dave Gilbert up against Jamie Barrett. Elsewhere there is clashes between Ricky Walden and Lertsattayatthorn from Thailand as well as Robbie Williams and Yu Delu.
Evening Session
All eyes will be on one match in particular in the evening session. That is the one between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Jimmy White which is inevitably on a TV table first up. The other main table game first up in this session sees Mark King facing Liang Wenbo. Jack Lisowski plays John Astley and Aditya Mehta meets Anthony McGill on the outside tables.
Following all that Mark Williams is on a main table when he faces Craig Steadman while Ken Doherty meets Anthony Hamilton on the other. Marco Fu plays Sam Baird and Eden Sharav meets Yan Bingtao to round off the day.
Betting
I’m going with three bets in Wednesday’s action. We begin in the afternoon with Gary Wilson taking on Andrew Higginson. Higginson is a man on the downturn whereas Gary Wilson picks up some solid results in the early rounds of tournaments. Wilson played well in the first round and at odds against he is the call there.
I’m going to take a chance on Akani Songsermsawad against Mark Davis. Davis looked out of sorts in the Champion of Champions last week and although he came through 4-0 in the first round to not make a 50 against an average opponent suggests his game isn’t quite right yet. Songsermsawad is a solid scorer and has a win over Davis from India already this season and he’s value to pick another one up here.
Finally although the snooker romantics would love Jimmy White to give Ronnie O’Sullivan a game I don’t see it happening. I love Jimmy to bits but there are levels in the game now and O’Sullivan is a good few above him. Sometimes taking Ronnie on handicaps in short formats isn’t the way forward but he’ll give everything against an icon of the game and Jimmy’s lack of scoring power will go against him here.
Tips
WON – Back G.Wilson to beat A.Higginson for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with Coral
WON – Back A.Songsermsawad to beat M.Davis for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Coral
Back them here:
WON – Back R.O’Sullivan (-2.5 frames) to beat J.White for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
Back him here:
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