The third day of action at the Welsh Open in Llandudno sees the first round of the main draw come to a close and the second round of it getting underway on another day with three sessions of play throughout Wednesday.
We saw our first big shocks on Tuesday when Neil Robertson, Kyren Wilson, Mark Williams and Ding Junhui were among the players to depart the tournament and that will keep the big names who are on show on Wednesday firmly on their toes to avoid being the victim of an upset.
Morning Session
The UK Championship winner Mark Allen is the headline act in the first session of the day. The player of the season so far will look to secure his place in the second round at the expense of Mitchell Mann. Ali Carter is the most recent winner of a ranking event and he’ll look to keep his unbeaten run going when he takes on the amateur Ian Martin. The other two matches in the session will see Hossein Vafaei going up against Ken Doherty and the veteran Andy Hicks meeting Wu Yize.
Afternoon Session
The first round concludes in the afternoon session where there are two more sets of matches, with the first one being headlined by The Masters champion Judd Trump, who goes up against the extremely competent Louis Heathcote. Barry Hawkins is the other big name on show first up in the afternoon. He has an even tougher looking assignment against Ben Woollaston while Matthew Selt will look to continue his good Championship League form when he meets Daniel Wells. There is also a big opportunity for both Mohamed Ibrahim and Sanderson Lam when they meet.
John Higgins is the headline act in the second part of the afternoon and he is involved in the match of the day on the main table when he goes up against Martin Gould in what could turn into a humdinger of a contest. Jack Lisowski is also on show in this part of the day when he meets Ryan Thomerson while David Lilley goes up against Ricky Walden and Jimmy White will look to continue his good form when he takes on Tian Pengfei.
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Evening Session
The second round of the tournament gets underway in the evening session on Wednesday and it will be the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan who is the main attraction first up on the main table. He meets Rod Lawler in what looks to be a good opportunity for the Rocket to make further progress in the event. Dave Gilbert has been playing well this week and he takes on Ben Mertens while Joe Perry continues his title defence against Robbie Williams. The other match sees Stuart Carrington facing Joe O’Connor.
The second part of the evening session will be headed by Mark Selby. He is set for a cracking clash with Robert Milkins, which is probably the last thing he needed having not finished his Tuesday match until just after 1am. There are big chances to make the last 16 of a ranking event for the other six men on show in this session. Yuan Sijun will be favourite to get there against Dominic Dale, while Jak Jones will hope to keep home hopes going when he faces Julien Leclercq. Aaron Hill faces Pang Junxu in the other match.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like over the course of the day but I always feel that Barry Hawkins is better as an underdog rather than a favourite, something he has admitted to in the past. Not only is he the favourite to beat Ben Woollaston but he is currently in the last spot for the Players Championship next week so he is under pressure to win here and keep the chasing dogs at bay for that spot. Woollaston doesn’t have any of those issues just yet. He can focus on winning a snooker match.
Woollaston has beaten Stuart Bingham and Mark Williams this season and has been unlucky in the Home Nations events. He has qualified for them all but in the first round in Northern Ireland he went out in a deciding frame in the early hours of the morning after starting very late against John Astley and then ran into Kyren Wilson and Ronnie O’Sullivan in the first round of the Scottish and English Opens. To be fair, the draw hasn’t been much kinder here but he had some wins at the 6 Red qualifying and in qualifying for this so his form is good. Hawkins tends to need the big stages and big events to find his best stuff. Aside from the European Masters earlier in the season where he made the final, he has only won more than one main draw match once at the English Open. Since he made the final of this in 2018, Hawkins hasn’t made a Home Nations quarter final so I’m not convinced they agree with him and at 19/10 I think Woollaston could be value to dump him out of this one.
Tips
Back B.Woollaston to beat B.Hawkins for a 3/10 stake at 2.90 with William Hill
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