The opening night of the Players Championship contains two first round matches as the second event in the Duelbits Series gets underway in relatively quiet fashion in Wolverhampton on Monday evening.
It might be a quiet evening in terms matches but not in potential quality as the two highest money earners in ranking events this season are both in action and taking on surprise packages from the campaign so far.
Table One
Mark Allen vs Joe O’Connor
The match on the main table on Monday evening sees the runaway star of the season Mark Allen going up against the last man into the field in the form of the Scottish Open finalist Joe O’Connor for a quarter final spot.
Allen is an absolute country mile clear at the top of the rankings even though his play hasn’t been the best in the second part of the season. Despite not being at his best by his own admission since the British Open, which ironically he lost in the final of, Allen has still added the Northern Ireland Open, UK Championship and World Grand Prix titles to his mantelpiece. He met O’Connor in the second round of the last of those events and edged him out 4-3 in a match he came from 2-0 and 3-2 down to win 4-3. O’Connor has been playing well this season. He followed up his run to the final of the Scottish Open with another quarter final in Llandudno last week and will be full of confidence. He usually goes well on the big stages and I wouldn’t be surprised if O’Connor gets Allen into a close battle here but it is hard to go against Allen, who can now win matches when nowhere near his best.
Special Offer
Sign up for a Boylesports account and bet £10 to get up to £20 in free bets! Perfect offer for this tournament! Click the image below for this great offer! New accounts only. 18+ T&Cs apply. Gamble Aware.
Table Two
Ryan Day vs Chris Wakelin
While the number one seed will grace the main table on Monday evening, table two will be occupied by the number two seed Ryan Day. He takes on the recent winner of the Snooker Shootout in Chris Wakelin for a quarter final berth.
Day is a bit of a mystery this season. He has had one good week in the campaign and turned it into a title win at the British Open. Even by his own admission he didn’t play well there until the final session of the final. His semi-final that week was one of the hardest watches of the season and he hasn’t really done much in terms of impressing since then. His last outing was in the Welsh Open last week where you would imagine he would have been fully motivated but lost in his held over qualifying round to Stuart Carrington in another dog of a match. Wakelin has no such issues. He won the Shootout last month and then followed that up with making the quarter finals of the German Masters where Robert Milkins beat him on a day where the daft scheduling of that event caught up with him. Even then it was a Milkins on fire as he banged in a 147 in that match. He ran into a good looking Dave Gilbert last week but still made runs of 79 and 91 in the frames he won there. We’ve seen Shootout winners revive their careers when winning that tournament. Michael White added another title soon after winning it while the likes of Day himself, Barry Hawkins and Hossein Vafaei have all kicked on since landing that title and with no ranking pressures on Wakelin for a while now I would expect him to do the same. That can begin with a win as the outsider against a Day who since the British Open has gone past the second round of a tournament just once. Wakelin is local to Wolverhampton so motivation will be sky high. I think he wins this.
Tips
Back C.Wakelin to beat R.Day for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Bet365
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2023
