The opening day of the Shanghai Masters sees both the wildcard round and the first round proper of the tournament begin as eight matches are played in the Chinese city on Monday. There may be a shortage of matches but there isn’t a let-down in the standard of players on show.
Right out of the gun in this tournament we get to see the likes of John Higgins, Ding Junhui, Marco Fu and Anthony McGill on what should be an entertaining beginning to the event.
Early Session
Four matches take place in the first session of the day. That includes two first round matches which are the ones between Ricky Walden and Michael White and the one between Marco Fu and Dave Gilbert. They are the matches on the televised tables which will be shown on Eurosport in the UK and on the live streaming consoles.
The other two matches in the session both come in the wildcard round with Michael Holt taking on Xu Si and the Indian Open champion Anthony McGill looking to avoid the banana skin that is Chen Zifan.
Late Session
There are four matches in this session too where all eyes will be on Ding Junhui to see if he can thrill the local crowds when he takes on Scott Donaldson. The other first round game sees John Higgins taking on Matt Selt in a match which might not be as straight forward as the odds suggest.
The two wildcard rounds see Liang Wenbo and Martin Gould looking to avoid coming a cropper in the round which shouldn’t be in existence. They go up against Hu Hao and Yuan Sijun respectively with the latter potentially being a real danger.
Betting
I’m going to start the week slowly in terms of match betting. I think this is quite a tricky day to call with a series of matches that have the potential to be tight but at the same time have a big name who could get on a real roll and win with a bit in hand. I’m going to target one of the few that doesn’t look like it will be close.
That is the one featuring Ding Junhui. He has played Scott Donaldson twice in his career and is yet to lose a frame and while you have to give the Scot full credit for making it through the lengthy qualifying programme to get to this stage it would be a major surprise if he goes any further.
Sometimes I’m reluctant to take Ding in these early rounds as he doesn’t always hit the ground running but having warmed up by winning the six red event last weekend he should be full of beans going into this match.
You have to go back over two years for the last time Donaldson played in a full ranking event in China and he wouldn’t have been on a TV table against the local hero then. These are all factors that can help Ding cover a large looking handicap but one which might not be big enough. 5-2 gets us half our money back. 5-0 or 5-1 gives us a full win and I fancy this one to end with one of those two scorelines.
Tips
Back D.Junhui (-2.75 frames – Asian handicap) to beat S.Donaldson for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
Back him here:
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