The first round of the UK Championship draws to a close over the course of two sessions of play inside the Barbican Centre in York on Tuesday, by the end of which we will know which 16 players will be left in the tournament.
We’ve seen plenty of seeded players fall by the wayside over the first three days of the competition and we’ve also seen some of the bigger names make it through to the last 16. Tuesday will see two of the greats of the game looking to make it through.
Afternoon Session
Judd Trump vs Xiao Guodong
The match on the main table in the afternoon session on Tuesday sees the former champion Judd Trump looking to move into the last 16 when he takes on the dangerous Chinese player Xiao Guodong, who has impressed plenty this season.
Guodong might not have had the deep runs in the tournaments that he would have wanted but he has been scoring brilliantly and if Trump is slightly off the top of his game then there is a chance he could struggle. Trump arrives here off the back of reaching the final of the Champion of Champions earlier in the month where he made a 147 in the concluding match so he appears to be heading into form at the right time. Star players always get motivated by these big stages and tournaments so I’m expecting Trump to come to the party here and if he does this is a tough assignment for Guodong. Guodong doesn’t have the worst record against Trump but you sense this match is in the cue of the superstar so I’m happy to leave this one alone.
Jack Lisowski vs Xu Si
Over on the other table Trump’s best pal Jack Lisowski will be the main draw. He goes in search of a first TV title this week and he will get his quest underway against a highly rated Xu Si, who himself probably hasn’t fulfilled his promise yet.
Having not made it beyond the qualifying round of the Northern Ireland Open and having had his other qualifiers held over to the venue, Lisowski has only played one competitive match in the last six weeks so there is a chance he goes into this one underdone. That isn’t the case with Xu Si. He beat Dave Gilbert to qualify for the Scottish Open and Zhou Yuelong to make the English Open and then in the last two qualifying rounds for this tournament he beat Jimmy Robertson and Tian Pengfei, scoring for fun and looking really good. If Lisowski doesn’t hit the ground running here this could very quickly turn out to be an awkward assignment for him. I think Lisowski will just about have enough to come through here but had Si been a little bigger in price I would certainly have been priced in.
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Evening Session
Mark Selby vs Hossein Vafaei
The main table action in the evening session sees the former champion Mark Selby looking to make it through to the last 16 of the tournament when he takes on the man who dumped him out in the last 64 here a year ago in Hossein Vafaei.
Selby was obviously going through his mental health issues at that time but there are signs that he is over all them and ready to win a big tournament again. That spells trouble for Vafaei, who has shown that he can compete at the top of the game in the lesser tournaments but hasn’t really cracked the code in these big ones where he is the centre of attention in the bigger venues. That will come but whether it comes here or not is the real question. I suspect it won’t but Selby is priced accordingly and given the potential jeopardy that there is, this is another match that I’m happy to leave alone.
Shaun Murphy vs Dave Gilbert
The last of the first round matches on the second table is one of the ties of the round as the former world champion Shaun Murphy takes on a Dave Gilbert who will be looking to get his hands on a first Triple Crown title this week.
Murphy is under a bit of pressure this week because his season just hasn’t got going at all. In fairness he has run into a few good performances but nothing he shouldn’t be able to overcome. He has been working on TV in the early stages of this week and he’s been pretty frequent so how much practicing he’ll have done is open to debate. Gilbert hasn’t pulled up the number of trees he would have wanted to this season but he has had a couple of decent runs and will have tuned his game up nicely at the qualifiers where he lost just two frames and scored very well. If Gilbert settles in the surroundings, and he has enough experience now to do that, then you would think he is playing the sort of level of snooker which will see him come out on top in this match. I’ll take Gilbert to come out on top in this one.
Tips
Back D.Gilbert to beat S.Murphy for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Unibet
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