The first round of the Players Championship finishes on Wednesday when the final 16 players to get their tournament underway so do in Manchester, each looking for valuable ranking points and prize money to boost their rankings ahead of the cut off for the Crucible.
The opening day of action saw expected wins for Shaun Murphy, Ding Junhui and Judd Trump which bodes well for later in the tournament and on Wednesday the likes of Mark Allen, Mark Williams and Barry Hawkins will be looking to join them.
The afternoon session begins with Hawkins taking on Michael Holt while on the other table Matt Selt plays Andrew Higginson. A couple of weeks ago I’d be all over Hawkins in that match but he’s just lost 4-0 to Joe Perry in the World Grand Prix while at the same time Michael Holt was beating Ronnie O’Sullivan so all of a sudden value on Hawkins looks diminished. Whether Holt can back that up remains to be seen.
I’m not sure how the Selt game is going to go. Selt is a late call up to this tournament after Selby withdrew so whether he will have been able to prepare properly remains to be seen. If he has he should beat Higginson but too much guess work is needed to be sure.
Later in the afternoon Mark Allen begins his quest for another major title. He faces a dangerous opponent in Mark Davis and that could go either way. Davis hasn’t shown enough to lure me into a bet but he is good enough to put me off one.
While that is going on Mark King will face Sam Baird on the other table. Baird could be a spot of value there but King has been pretty solid this season and he will see that the winner faces Allen or Davis and then one of Ryan Day, Kyren Wilson or Mike Dunn and he’ll see a possible semi-final place up for grabs. It is another one to leave alone.
The evening session begins with a tough looking match between Ryan Day and Kyren Wilson. Their two meetings in normal tournaments this season have gone to a decider and it would be no surprise if this one does likewise so the prices are about right in that one.
Tian Pengfei and Rob Milkins meet on the other table to open up the evening. Usually you would suggest that Milkins is a good thing in that one but it has been a while since he has convinced and maybe Pengfei has every chance there. Apart from his run to the final in Germany earlier in the season the Chinese player has offered little this season so that is another game to leave alone.
We have an all-Welsh match to finish the day off on the main table as Mark Williams faces Dominic Dale. Williams has a good record over Dale historically and all things being equal I would expect that to continue but Williams was playing in a Chinese pool event last week and might not have had much time to acclimatise so I’ll leave that alone.
The last game of the day sees Tom Ford taking on Ricky Walden. I’ve always thought Ford is perfectly suited to this format and I expect him to go well here. Walden is obviously the most established of the two but if you take off his run to the Asian Tour final he has offered little all season and comes here very low on form.
Ford beat Mark Selby fair and square in the World Grand Prix and while he wasn’t able to back that up it does at least show that he’s hitting the ball nicely. Ford scored well in that match and has generally been playing ok for a while. At 7/5 he’s good value in this one.
Back T.Ford to beat R.Walden for a 4/10 stake at 2.40 with NetBet
Back him here:
