The Shanghai Masters has reached the last 16 stage with the entire round being played across two more sessions of play on Thursday as the event begins to ramp up towards a high profile conclusion.
Many of the big names have dodged a bullet in the opening round which means the cast list on Thursday is of the highest quality and some of the matches look very tasty on paper and should turn out that way on the green baize too.
Early Session
The world champion Mark Selby is on one of the TV tables when he goes up against Stuart Carrington for a place in the quarter final while Ryan Day hosts one of the two remaining Chinese players in Mei Xiwen in the other televised game.
Away from the cameras there is a good looking battle between Barry Hawkins and Stephen Maguire while Stuart Bingham takes on Dave Gilbert in the other match in the first session of play.
Late Session
All eyes will be on two men in this session and not surprisingly they are both on the TV tables. They are of course Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ding Junhui. They don’t play each other although they will win the quarter final should both win. O’Sullivan takes on Michael Holt while Ding plays Mark Allen in the match of the round.
Another decent match takes place on the outside tables where Ali Carter takes on John Higgins for the second Chinese event in a row. The other match of the day sees Judd Trump taking on Michael White.
Betting
There are three bets I like in this round of matches which hopefully we can use to build on the winner we had with Stephen Maguire on Wednesday. In fact he is the first bet on Thursday.
Maguire looked really good in seeing off Shaun Murphy without losing a frame on Wednesday. That was his second 5-0 win in as many days and just like on Tuesday he scored really well in the win over Murphy. Hawkins had a 5-0 win of his own against Robert Milkins on Wednesday and credit to him for that but when Maguire is in the mood he is in this week he’s very hard to beat. At 10/11 he looks an obvious bet.
Mei Xiwen is having a great tournament. He won four qualifying matches to make it this far and they included wins over the competent Dominic Dale and the granite like Graeme Dott and then he went and beat Mark Williams on Wednesday. He now faces Ryan Day who looked dreadful against Neil Robertson on Tuesday. Credit to him for coming through but Robertson had tip problems and never recovered. If Day doesn’t improve significantly then Xiwen’s good run might not be over just yet.
Finally Ronnie O’Sullivan looked very rusty against Liang Wenbo on Tuesday and had he been up against a less erratic opponent he would have been out of the tournament. He faces a much more at it Michael Holt on Thursday, a Holt who has already beaten the Rocket in 2016 and who has started this season really well. He made the final in Riga at the beginning of the season and played well in his win over Kyren Wilson in the first round here. He may not win this match but he can take advantage of an opponent working his way into the season to take three frames if not all five.
Tips
WON – Back S.Maguire to beat B.Hawkins for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfred
Back him here:
Back M.Xiwen to beat R.Day for a 3/10 stake at 2.88 with Boylesports
Back him here:
WON – Back M.Holt (+2.5 frames) to beat R.O’Sullivan for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2016
