The first round of the UK Championship qualifying competition concludes and the second round gets started across three more sessions of play inside the Mattioli Arena in Leicester on Sunday on a day where we go closer to finalising the field for the opening Triple Crown event of the season.
Players ranked 49-80 in the world rankings enter in the second round of the competition so we are getting closer to seeing the bigger names come to the party. There will be a huge battle to book a date with one of those.
Morning Session
The first round of the competition comes to a close in the morning session where the undoubted star of the opening part of the day will be Jimmy White. He will take centre stage for a match against Paul Deaville. It is actually Andrew Higginson who is the highest ranked player on show in the morning. He meets the former professional Dylan Emery in a good game. Another good game in this session sees Michael Holt facing Steven Hallworth while Duane Jones will look to make it into the second round when he faces Ryan Thomerson. Elsewhere, Manasawin Phetmalaikul looks for a rare tour win when he takes on the now amateur player Andres Petrov while Chris Totten meets Ryan Davies is another decent looking encounter. The other two matches see Robbie McGuigan playing Habib Subah Humood from Bahrain while Allan Taylor takes on the Indian player Kreishh Gurbaxani.
Afternoon Session
This is where the second round of the tournament gets up and running and the highest ranked player in this round is Jordan Brown. He is up in the afternoon session when he takes on Florian Nuessle while Jamie Clarke will look to move a step closer to a return to York when he meets Mostafa Dorgham. Ian Burns is the lower ranked player entering the event at this stage and he’ll take on Gong Chenzhi while the Wuhan Open semi-finalist Long Zehuang plays Liam Graham. David Grace will no doubt be up for a big run here with the main event in Yorkshire where he is from. Artemijs Zizins stands in his way. Daniel Wells meets Haris Tahir in one of the other matches while Stuart Carrington faces Oliver Sykes in another. The other game sees Ma Hailong taking on Liam Pullen.
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Evening Session
The second round of the tournament continues in the evening session where Mark Davis is the highest ranked player on show. He has a date with Wang Yuchel but the majority of the attention might well be on the clash between Jamie Jones and the women’s world champion Bai Yulu. Rory Thor and Zak Surety are both making strides in 2024 and they meet on Sunday evening while Louis Heathcote looks to build on his run to the quarter final of the Northern Ireland Open when he takes on Mohammed Shehab and Sanderson Lam goes up against Haydon Pinhey who had a bye in the first round when Reanne Evans didn’t compete. The other three matches have two veterans on show when David Lilley and Alfie Burden take to the baize. The former meets Liam Davies while the latter takes on Alexander Ursenbacher. Ashley Carty will go up against Iulian Boiko in the other match.
Betting
Bookmakers have been a little slow in pricing up the afternoon and evening sessions on Sunday so I’ll update this page with bets for those in the morning but there is one in the opening session that I like the look of and that comes in the form of Ryan Davies to beat Chris Totten. Totten has been okay on the tour this season but he hasn’t pulled up any trees and he could be vulnerable as a professional against an amateur playing with freedom and one who made the final of the Q Tour event last weekend where it took Xiao Xintong to beat him. The likes of Florian Nuessle, who has already won his first round match here, James Cahill and Dylan Emery were among his victims on the way to the final of that event and in the only main draw he has gotten into this season he beat Stephen Maguire in one of two wins he had in his Championship League group. He made some nice breaks last weekend and feels good value here.
Tips
Back R.Davies to beat C.Totten for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with William Hill
Back him here:
