The first round of the World Championship qualifying event concludes on Wednesday and the second round gets underway as we begin to draw closer to deciding who will join the top 16 players at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
That means we will see the 16 players yet to get their campaign underway in the first round doing so in the early stages of the day on Wednesday and then some first round winners will meet a higher ranked player to begin the second round later in the day.
Morning Session
Wu Yize is the highest ranked player on show in the morning session. He faces the man who ended the career of Alan McManus at this venue 12 months ago in his countryman Bai Langning who threatened to burst back onto the scene with the win over the Scot but has done little since. It might well be that most of the attention comes in the match which contains the world amateur champion Si Jiahui, the player who caused a real stir at the UK Championship when he dumped Shaun Murphy out of that competition. He’ll open up his campaign against Zak Surety in a real good contest.
Two other matches will take place in this session. One of them will probably slip under the radar given who is on show elsewhere. That sees Farakh Ajaib taking on Mark Lloyd while there is a rare clash between two professional players at this stage of the competition as well as Lei Peifan meets the youngster Sean Maddocks. Both men are going to need to qualify for the main draw to keep their tour card so someone will see their pro status end here.
Afternoon Session
The afternoon session sees the final four first round matches taking place with Mitchell Mann the highest ranked player taking to the tables. He faces an awkward task against Dylan Emery who has got better with the more opportunities he has had on the tour this term. Jackson Page is one of the many promising youngsters on the tour and he’ll look to make progress in this session as well. He will go up against Sean O’Sullivan who himself is competent.
Iulian Boiko will start out his World Championship campaign in this match although understandably he might have his mind elsewhere at the minute. That might be to the benefit of Michael Georgiou who has been to the Crucible before and will want to launch a run of getting there again. The other match sees the experienced Gerard Greene taking on the newest member of the tour for next season in the ladies star Rebecca Kenna.
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Evening Session
We get the second round of the competition underway in the evening session on Wednesday and we do so with the highest ranked player in this round on show. That is Scott Donaldson and he will take on the amateur from Northern Ireland in Robbie McGuigan who had a good win over Alfie Burden in the first round. Dominic Dale is another leading light on show in this session. He faces his fellow Welsh player Duane Jones with tour survival on the line for both men.
There is an all-Chinese battle on one of the other tables in this session as Lyu Haotian looks to move to within a couple of wins of reaching the Crucible once again. He will meet Xu Si who may well be the last man to have beaten Stephen Hendry in a World Championship having done so last season. The other match in this session has Allan Taylor taking on Michael Judge in what might be a clash in styles.
Betting
I’ll take one bet over the course of the day and we wait until the evening session for it to come along as Allan Taylor takes on Michael Judge in a match I expect the Englishman to power through. There will be some lower ranked players who win through in this round because they are taking on someone who might not have played a competitive match for the best part of a month but Judge just doesn’t score well enough to trouble Taylor in my eyes.
Admittedly the best form of Taylor was earlier in the season but he hasn’t necessarily dropped off his best snooker he has just come up against some inspired performances. I think this match is all about Taylor. If he plays well and scores well then I don’t see Judge having the scoring power over this distance to get close to him. This is a chance for Taylor to find some form and confidence to take into the final two rounds with him and I don’t expect him to disappoint.
Tips
Back A.Taylor (-1.5 frames) to beat M.Judge for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with Coral
Back him here:
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