The final day of qualifying for the UK Championship takes place inside the Mattioli Arena in York on Thursday as the eight remaining spots in the main draw will be filled on a day which promises plenty of tension and drama.
By the end of the day we will know the identity of the players who will be competing in the main draw at the Barbican Centre in York from Saturday so we should be in for a decent day to round off the qualifying competition.
Afternoon Session
Dave Gilbert is the highest ranked player looking to make it into the main draw in the afternoon session on Thursday. The World Championship semi-finalist will go up against Julien Leclercq for a spot at York but the attention might well be on one of the other tables where Zhao Xintong will look to complete his return to the tour by qualifying for the second biggest ranking event in the UK. Ricky Walden is the player who stands in his way. Zhou Yuelong is another Chinese star looking to qualify for the main draw. He goes up against Matthew Selt while Ben Woollaston will face another player from China in the form of Lei Peifan.
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Evening Session
Neil Robertson is the second highest ranked player in the qualifying section this year and he is a win away from the main draw. That comes in the headline match in the evening session where he faces the former champion Matthew Stevens. Robert Milkins is another relatively big name looking to make it through and he will go up against the Chinese player Xu Si. The other two matches see four players who are outside the top 50 in the world rankings looking to make it into the main draw and significantly boost their ranking when Stan Moody faces He Guoqiang while Liu Hongyu takes on Michael Holt in the other one.
Betting
Once again the odds for the final day of qualifying look about right. There are a couple of more established names who are odds against for their matches but that is because they are in little form at all and their opponents are on the up and this format isn’t really long enough for the format to be a factor so there isn’t a huge amount that I like the look of on Thursday, although one player does feel a shade bigger than I expected and that is Lei Peifan.
He will have noticed the Chinese players who have been having plenty of success on the tour in recent times and will probably want a piece of that for himself at some point and he might have a good draw in Ben Woollaston because the Englishman hasn’t really pulled up any trees of late. He trailed Joe Perry, who is in a horrendous run of form, 4-1 and in the deciding frame of that match Perry missed a black off its spot ahead of clearing the colours up. Peifan looks in better touch than that and as such with a good start he could be the value over the course of the day.
Tips
Back L.Peifan to beat B.Woollaston for a 3/10 stake at 2.38 with William Hill
Back him here:
