The second day of the Welsh Open sees the main draw of the tournament getting underway on another day of three sessions of action inside Venue Cymru in Llandudno as the final Hone Nations event of the season continues.
All but two of the top 16 players in action on Monday came through their held over qualifying match which means that we have plenty of big names on show right from the first round from here on in, including on Tuesday.
Morning Session
The defending champion Joe Perry remains in the tournament and he will headline the morning session for the second day in succession. He goes up against Mark Joyce in a match which will take place on the main table. Shaun Murphy is once again the highest ranked player on show in this part of the day. He has a trappy encounter with Peng Yisong to negotiate. The tie of the morning could come on one of the outside tables where Stephen Maguire meets Yuan Sijun while Aaron Hill and Hammad Miah will face off in the other match.
Afternoon Session
Once again we have two sets of matches in the afternoon session. The first of them will be headlined by Neil Robertson who knows he needs to keep winning if he is going to compete in the Players Championship next week. He goes up against Dominic Dale on the main table. On the next big table the UK Championship finalist Ding Junhui will be in action. He faces his fellow Chinese player Cao Yupeng. The other two matches which begin the afternoon sees Graeme Dott meeting Joe O’Connor and two exciting youngsters meet when Ben Mertens faces Jackson Page.
The second half of the afternoon will see the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan back on the table. He plays his first round clash against Ross Muir on the main table. While that is going on, the English Open finalist Luca Brecel will take on Elliot Slessor on another of the main tables. We have a repeat of a match from the World Grand Prix also going on in the second part of the afternoon when Anthony McGill takes on Sam Craigie while the popular Welsh player Matthew Stevens meets Rod Lawler.
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Evening Session
We also have a couple of sets of matches in the evening session with the home favourite Mark Williams the headline attraction in the first of them. He’ll be on the main table against another Welsh player in Jak Jones. Another Welsh player will also be on show first up when Liam Davies meets Robbie Williams. The other two matches first up in the evening see Stuart Carrington playing Andy Lee and Robert Milkins taking on Dean Young.
Mark Selby will be on the main table in the second part of the evening for the second night in a row. Having overcome Jamie O’Neill on Monday, the English Open champion will go up against Si Jiahui. Kyren Wilson is the other star name closing out the evening. He’ll go up against Pang Junxu. The 2021 winner Jordan Brown is also in action in this session. He meets the Shootout finalist Julien Leclercq while the man who beat the Belgian in that final, Chris Wakelin, goes up against Dave Gilbert who played very well on Monday.
Betting
Joe O’Connor is having a decent season and although he has gone a little quiet since he made the final of the Scottish Open, he has lost to Mark Selby, Mark Allen and Elliot Slessor since then. The only one of those matches he would have been favourite to win is the Slessor one but he ran into a player who was just in exceptional form on the day with a couple of centuries and a couple of other big breaks. O’Connor himself didn’t play badly in that match which is promising.
He now meets Graeme Dott who isn’t having a particularly inspiring season. I have regularly maintained that I don’t think these relatively short format tournaments are for him. Since the Home Nations became a thing, this is the seventh season of them and he has only been past the third round of a tournament twice. This will be the 28th such event so that in itself tells you all you need to go about how he is suited to them. He hasn’t been past the second round of this tournament in five years and feels very vulnerable. Contrast that to O’Connor who is a former semi-finalist of this event and a finalist in that Scottish Open earlier in the year and he looks much more content in them and at even money I think he sees off Dott here.
Tips
Back J.O’Connor to beat G.Dott for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
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