The first round of the Shanghai Masters is in the books and from here on in a whole round will be played each day until we find a winner on Sunday.
Thursday sees the last 16 being played in full across two sessions of play and at the end of it we will know the quarter final line up.
Wednesday was a day of surprise results in China with Neil Robertson becoming the biggest name to exit the tournament. He lost to Jamie Cope. Mark Selby pulled out of the tournament due to a family bereavement so the event lost two star names.
There are still plenty left in the tournament though and as such we’ve got some good matches to look forward to across the day.
The early session sees the world champion Stuart Bingham in action along with the former world champions Mark Williams and Shaun Murphy. In the later session the Chinese hero Ding Junhui is on the table along with the likes of John Higgins, Mark Allen and Judd Trump.
The bets I like on Thursday both come from the morning session. The first sees Mark Williams going against Jamie Cope and I like the Welshman in that match up. He has a good record over Jamie Cope having won their previous five meetings. The last three haven’t been very close at all.
Cope had a good win over Neil Robertson on Wednesday but it is sometimes difficult to back up a high profile win. Williams smacked in a couple of centuries in a solid win over Tom Ford on Wednesday and I fancy him to come through this relatively comfortably.
The second bet I like is Mark Davis to beat Shaun Murphy. Davis did me a good turn on Wednesday and I’m prepared to take him again. Shaun Murphy edged out Peter Ebdon but he knows as well as everyone else he was hanging on by a thread. Davis banged in a century in the final frame against White and played pretty well throughout. He looks overpriced against a Murphy who never hit the heights in the first round.
Back M.Williams (-1.5 frames) to beat J.Cope for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Stan James
Back M.Davis to beat S.Murphy for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with BetVictor
Blog snooker YTD: +35.4pts
