The second round of the World Championship continues on Friday on a day where a number of the best players in the sport grace the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield to keep us entertained over three more sessions of play.
Four former champions are on show over the course of the day while a couple of extremely talented tournament winners looking for their first world title also grace the baize. We should be in for a fabulous day of action.
Day 6 Recap
Thursday was a much more dramatic day than we might have expected it to be to close out the first round of the competition. It began in the rearranged morning session where Joe Perry failed to convert his 7-2 lead, going down in a deciding frame to Robert Milkins to deny us what looked like a certain winner. Mark Selby survived a comeback from Matt Selt before edging him out 10-8 but then the day finished with arguably the biggest shock of the tournament so far when Si Jiahui saw off Shaun Murphy in a deciding frame for the second Triple Crown event in as many seasons.
The second round also got underway on Thursday with Mark Williams and Luca Brecel looked at 4-4 while Mark Allen holds a narrow lead over Stuart Bingham. He’ll begin 5-3 up when they return on Friday afternoon.
In Play Betting
Two matches continue after a first session on Friday. I don’t really want to get involved in the Mark Allen vs Stuart Bingham match just yet because the first session of that match was chaotic with all sorts of flukes, misses and things we wouldn’t generally expect. I still fancy Bingham to come into that one but they finish on Saturday morning so I’m going to see if normality returns in the second session of that one before deciding whether to get involved on Saturday.
I will get involved in the other match though. I suspected that Mark Williams went into this tournament a little underdone and while he came through the first round, had Jimmy Robertson turned up to the second session he might not have done. I had it in mind to have Luca Brecel on side from the off in this one but I wanted to make sure his win over Ricky Walden wasn’t just a brief change from his poor record here. When he was 3-1 down that could easily have been the case but Brecel really took the game to Williams after the interval and might even have come out with a 5-3 lead. I don’t think this is the Williams who played so well here last season. His long game doesn’t look as crisp and while he is as wily as they come, Brecel looks full of confidence and if he takes the lead in this one I think he could gallop clear. I think the chances of the Belgian winning this is stronger than 7/5 price about it happening and I’m happy to be on at that price.
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Jak Jones vs Neil Robertson (Friday 10am, Friday 7pm & Saturday 2.30pm)
Just three unseeded players made it through to the second round and one of those gets his match underway on Friday morning when Jak Jones looks to back up his win over Ali Carter when he takes on the confident, high scoring Neil Robertson.
Jones is one of the most improved players on the scene in recent times and he played incredibly well against Carter, especially when you consider that match was his Crucible debut. You kind of thought that when Carter got back to 7-6 behind that he was nicely placed to outlast the Welshman and come through but Jones rebounded to win the last three in pretty dominant style for a 10-6 win and that bottle will serve him well here. If he can stick with Robertson he might find he can outlast the Australian when the going gets tough. Getting into that position will be tough though because Robertson looked in good order against Wu Yize in the first round. You could argue there was a gulf between those two but the Chinese player won just three frames but did so with a couple of tons and an 80. Some players worry when their opponent is in that form but Robertson didn’t. It is hard to go against Robertson here but there probably isn’t any improvement on that opening display and peaking too early here is not a good thing. The one thing we know about Robertson matches is they are going to be fun and open. He has made no secret of the fact he won’t get bogged down in safety battles so the 6/4 you can get on over 4.5 centuries has to be worth a go here. There were six tons in 13 frames in the first round Robertson win while Jones had a century against Carter and had one against Robertson when beating him in Gibraltar last season. I would be surprised if the way Robertson plays not if these two don’t combine for five more tons.
Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Hossein Vafaei (Friday 2.30pm, Saturday 2.30pm & Sunday 10am)
The big match on Friday is the billed grudge match between the defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan and the man who has made no secret of the fact he has lost all respect for him in the form of Hossein Vafaei.
The former Shootout champion has previously told O’Sullivan he should consider retiring and he wasn’t exactly doing a u-turn on those comments after seeing off Ding Junhui in the first round. I’m pretty convinced those comments are to hide away how well he played against Ding and stop too many people overhyping him but the danger is that they rattled the O’Sullivan cage. I think the consensus is that Vafaei will fire the Rocket up but based on what we saw in the opening round they will need to have because it was one of the flattest showings we’ve seen in this building from O’Sullivan. The one thing Vafaei has to do in this match is start well. If he starts how he finished against Ding then we could have a real match on our hands but I think the best thing to do here is watch the first session and just see what impact the Vafaei words have on the landscape and then assess heading into their second session on Saturday.
Tips
Back L.Brecel to beat M.Williams for a 3/10 stake at 2.40 with Betway
Back J.Jones vs N.Robertson – Over 4.5 centuries for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with William Hill
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