The opening day of the Shanghai Masters largely contains the wildcard round of the tournament but there are three matches from the first round of the event on a day where eight matches are played in the Chinese city.
In the afternoon session, played in the morning UK time, Jamie Jones, Mike Dunn and Peter Ebdon are in action against Chinese amateurs in the wildcard round while Graeme Dott plays Ryan Day in the first round.
The later session sees Robert Milkins and Alan McManus look to book their spots in the tournament itself when they play their wildcard matches while John Higgins takes on Liang Wenbo in the full draw as do Barry Hawkins and Martin Gould.
I’m not going to bet on any of the wildcard matches although I accept there is always a seeded player who comes a cropper in them. The trick is to find which one and that is easier said than done so I will leave those alone and work on the first round matches.
Graeme Dott met Ryan Day in the opening European Tour event of the season and beat him 4-0 and he opposes him here too. I suspect Day will put up a better showing here though so the Scot could be a little short.
John Higgins takes on Liang Wenbo in what looks like being the match of the day and in normal circumstances I would back the Chinese player in that especially in China but I’m on him outright so I can afford to let that one go.
Barry Hawkins and Martin Gould have both started the season well. Hawkins won the opening European Tour event of the season out in Latvia while Gould made the final of the Australian Open before he lost to John Higgins so both are in good touch right now.
With that in mind I’m looking at this one being quite a close match. They both play a similar game. Both like to get in, get the balls open and clear them up so this should be a decent enough watch. You can get just under even money on over 7.5 frames and with the form they’ve shown already this season that looks a perfectly acceptable price to me.
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