The Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters has reached the stage where the top 16 players enter the draw and they do so on Tuesday when they go up against one of the players who has progressed through the early stages of the tournament.
You get the feeling that the quality levels are about to go up from here on in. Matches are the best of nine and the best of the best are on show and looking to show that coming in cold isn’t necessarily the negative that some portray it to be.
Afternoon Session
The world number one Mark Allen headlines the first session of the day. He enters the tournament with a clash against Xiao Guodong while the Shanghai Masters winner Judd Trump is also on show in this session. He faces Wu Yize. The world finalist Jak Jones will look to make it into the last 16 when he takes on Jack Lisowski in a big match in this part of the day. The biggest though is the one which pits the two former world champions together when Mark Selby takes on Neil Robertson in a game which is good enough to be a final. Shaun Murphy opens up his campaign against Yuan Sijun while elsewhere, Gary Wilson faces Dave Gilbert, Ali Carter meets Elliot Slessor and Barry Hawkins faces off against Scott Donaldson.
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Evening Session
We have a really good looking evening session on Tuesday, one which is headlined by the reigning world champion and recently crowned Xi’an Grand Prix winner Kyren Wilson. He makes his bow into the evening against Liu Hongyu. Ronnie O’Sullivan is sure to be a star attraction as well and he will go up against Lei Peifan for a place in the last 16. Ding Junhui hasn’t really lit up the season yet and he meets Stuart Bingham while Mark Williams goes up against Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in what looks like a particularly appealing contest. Luca Brecel is also on show in this session when he takes on Pang Junxu while Tom Ford will look for a win over Si Jiahui who beat him at the Shanghai Masters earlier in the season. The other two matches sees Zhang Anda playing Ben Woollaston and John Higgins taking on Jimmy Robertson.
Betting
Luca Brecel is yet to win a match this season and while I would imagine he has been putting a fair bit of practice in for this tournament, by his standards anyway, I still think he is vulnerable to a Pang Junxu who is having a decent enough campaign so far having made the quarter final of the Shanghai Masters and last 32 of the Xi’an Grand Prix, losing to Mark Selby on both occasions. He has beaten Gary Wilson and Mark Allen at the Shanghai Masters and saw off Matt Selt here on Monday so the Chinese player looks in decent enough working order.
Brecel didn’t really have a great season last term, although it should be said that one of the events he did fare well in was in Saudi Arabia, which might be significant but the big disadvantage that the Belgian has here is that he hasn’t played a match since July 29 so that is going on six weeks without a competitive hit out. Pang has been much more active and brings some winning momentum into this match with him. That makes me think he is a fair bet at 6/5.
Tips
Back P.Junxu to beat L.Brecel for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with William Hill
Back him here:
