The first round of the Shanghai Masters draws to a close on Wednesday when the final eight matches are played over the two sessions of play out in China and once again we have some of the biggest names in the game looking to make it through.
The likes of John Higgins, Ding Junhui, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Selby are already through to the last 16 and on Wednesday it will be the turn of Neil Robertson, Shaun Murphy and Judd Trump to try and join them.
Early Session
Four first round matches will be played in this session. Stuart Bingham meets Jamie Jones on one of the televised tables while the other match in front of the cameras is the one between Neil Robertson and Ryan Day.
The other two matches look like being good games as Barry Hawkins goes up against Robert Milkins in a match which could go either way and World Open champion Ali Carter takes on Kurt Maflin for the right to face John Higgins in the next round.
Later Session
The last four matches in this round take place in this session. The two televised matches sees Judd Trump taking on Ben Woollaston and Shaun Murphy facing Stephen Maguire in a crunch battle which the Scot will be hoping to win to assist his quest to get back in the top 32.
Away from the cameras in this session Mark Williams will take on the Chinese player Mei Xiwen who isn’t likely to be short of support and Joe Perry will go up against Stuart Carrington once again.
Betting
Only one bet grabs my attention on this card and that is the Shaun Murphy vs Stephen Maguire match. Murphy has begun this season solidly without doing anything spectacular and goes into this match as a favourite but I sense the penny has dropped with Maguire given that he has had the wakeup call of dropping out of the top 16.
We know the Scot heads into this match in sensational form after his three century burst in his wildcard round match which he won 5-0 on Tuesday which included a maximum break and you don’t make those if you’re not cueing well.
Maguire has already made the quarter finals in India this season where he lost to the eventual champion Anthony McGill and he warmed up for this tournament with a run to the semi-final of the Six Red World Championship which looks to have fine-tuned his break building and at 11/8 he’s the best for me here.
Tips
WON – Back S.Maguire to beat S.Murphy for a 4/10 stake at 2.38 with Titanbet
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