The opening day of the Welsh Open sees all of the qualifying matches which were held over to the main venue played out across three sessions of action to start the final Home Nations event of the season at Venue Cymru in Llandudno.
With the top 16 players in the field having their match held over to the main venue we do now have to wait long for the tournament to kick into life. We have all the leading lights on show across the three sessions of play.
Morning Session
Joe Perry begins the defence of his title on the main table in the morning session. He had his qualifying match held over and will go up against Mark King for a place in the main draw. Shaun Murphy will be the highest ranked player in the session on show. He will meet Victor Sarkis for his place in the main draw. The pick of the matches in the morning session comes on one of the outside tables where Stuart Bingham takes on the home runner Jackson Page. The other match sees Michael Holt getting a chance in a big event as he replaced the suspended Zhao Xintong. He goes up against Tian Pengfei.
Afternoon Session
As ever we have two sets of matches in the afternoon session with the main table being occupied by the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan to get the action underway. Such is the quality on show over the course of the day Neil Robertson can only get a slot on table two. He takes on Andrew Higginson in what is a repeat of the final of this event from 2007. The pick of the matches on paper is the one between Dave Gilbert and Marco Fu which should be a cracker. We will also see a glimpse into the future as Oliver Briffett-Payne takes on Robbie Williams.
The Welsh number one Mark Williams headlines the action in the second part of the afternoon and he’ll be on the main table against his fellow Welsh player Michael White. That should be a great match but it is John Higgins who is the highest ranked player on show in the second part of the afternoon. He’ll take on Alexander Ursenbacher on table two while Kyren Wilson and Barry Hawkins will be on the outside tables. They face Asjad Iqbal and Ian Burns respectively.
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Evening Session
Judd Trump gets the action underway on the main table. The Masters champion hasn’t had the best time of it in ranking events this season and he’ll be looking to make the main draw at the expense of David Grace. Luca Brecel lost out in the final of the last Home Nations event and he’ll start his quest to go one better here when he takes on Sean O’Sullivan. Two Asian players meet when Hossein Vafaei and Lyu Haotian go up against each other, while another home player in Ryan Day takes on Stuart Carrington for a place in the main draw.
That all leaves the English Open winner Mark Selby on the main table in the final part of the day. He will go up against Jamie O’Neill for a place in the main draw. The man of the season Mark Allen will be up on the second table to close off play there. He meets Alfie Burden while Jack Lisowski takes on Zhang Anda on an outside table with those two facing off for the second time this month having played each other in the German Masters recently. The other match sees Noppon Saengkham taking on the home amateur Liam Davies.
Betting
Dave Gilbert has not looked at a good place with his game for a while now and I wonder how he will get himself up for a match with Marco Fu in the first round in the afternoon session. These two have already met this season when Fu demolished Gilbert 5-1 in qualifying for the European Masters right at the beginning of the campaign. It is hard to argue that Gilbert has got a lot better in his game since then and he highlighted he is battling some demons at The Masters.
Fu is probably free rolling at this stage in his career after he thought it was ending a few years ago when he had eye issues and fell off the tour only to be rightly given a wildcard to be allowed to resume his career. It was obvious Fu would improve the more competitive reps he had and we saw evidence of that in the Hong Kong Masters when he made the final courtesy of that 147 in the deciding frame of the semi-final. He just feels in a better place than Gilbert right now and I’ll take him to come through here.
Tips
Back M.Fu to beat D.Gilbert for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Betway
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