The Welsh Open has reached the last 32 stage with once again the entire round being played out in full on Wednesday. A bit like a tennis Grand Slam the tournament gets a bit serious from here on in with players in the top 32 who have made it through playing each other for the first time in the tournament.
Tuesday’s second round was another hugely dramatic day. We saw some big names exit, some cruise through and some put through the ringer. Ali Carter, Ricky Walden and Peter Ebdon were among the big names to bite the dust on Tuesday while defending champion John Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan powered through.
That all leaves us with 16 good looking matches to be played over the five sessions of action on Wednesday. John Higgins kicks things off on the TV table when he faces the surprise package of the event in Michael Georgiou. Higgins should win that but there’s no value on him.
Elsewhere in the morning Joe Perry could be vulnerable against Ken Doherty, Matthew Stevens plays Martin Gould in an entertaining looking match and Ben Woollaston faces Anthony Hamilton. The odds look about right in those matches.
The afternoon kicks off with the local hero Mark Williams back on the TV table. He faces Kurt Maflin in a match I’m hoping he wins for the outright bet but that I’m not going to bet on because the value isn’t there.
I will bet on one match in this session though. That is on Matt Selt in his match against Ding Junhui. Ding has finally won a couple of matches and has been putting in some work with Terry Griffiths which was good to hear but despite that he was 3-2 down to Joe Swail at one point and while he battled through the Chinese star needs to improve.
Matt Selt has gone quietly about his business this week but he looks to be scoring nicely and can be dangerous here. Selt has a 2-0 lead on Ding in their head to head, the latest meeting coming in the Six Red tournament earlier in the year and that confidence of knowing he can beat Ding could be valuable. I still don’t think Ding is at his best so I’ll take Selt at a big looking price there.
Also in that session Mark Davis and Barry Hawkins meet in an even looking match and Mark Selby is in action against Fergal O’Brien. Selby only came through his second round at just before 1am on Wednesday morning so the schedule is very much against him.
The focus in the second part of the afternoon session will be on Shaun Murphy as he plays the talented Belgian, Luca Brecel. Having made the last two finals you can easily argue Brecel is value in that match, he is, but I’m on him outright so rather than risk Murphy isn’t bang on it I’ll sit and cheer the Belgian on with my ante-post slip to hand.
This session also sees Neil Robertson taking on the potentially dangerous Anthony McGill who seems to overperform in a nothing to lose scenario while Dechawat Poomjaeng and Yu Delu battle knowing one of them will be in the last 16 of the tournament. The other match interests me though.
Graeme Dott and Marco Fu are both gritty fighters who leave nothing behind in their matches but Fu seems to get the upper hand when they meet and I fancy he can do that here too. Fu has won three of their four meetings including here two years ago and I like what I’ve seen from him this week.
Fu has scored well and only lost one frame coming into this match and I always say when Fu scores well the rest of the field is in danger. Graeme Dott has only made two breaks over 50 this week which isn’t going to help him and he had to come through a decider in the previous round against Ross Muir.
You get the feeling Fu is going the better of the two this week and I’ll take him to confirm that feeling into a positive result in this match.
The evening session is loaded with big names and good matches. Ronnie O’Sullivan and Jimmy Robertson occupy the TV table while Ryan Day and Mark Allen should play out a really good match. Liang Wenbo and Michael White meet in a match with potential Crucible qualifying implications and Judd Trump faces Alan McManus.
The odds all look about right to me. I’m on Wenbo outright so I’ll be cheering him on. I nearly took Allen on a handicap to continue his dominance over Day but I respect how well Day’s playing at the minute so in the end I’ve decided to sit the evening out in the hope Wenbo wins and the draw opens up a bit.
Back M.Selt to beat D.Junhui for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Stan James
WON – Back M.Fu to beat G.Dott for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfred
