The third round of the qualifying competition for the World Championship concludes on Monday which means that by the time the final ball is potted inside the English Institute of Sport we will know the line-up for Judgement Days.
Eight players get their campaign underway on Monday when they open up the show before coming back in the evening. The middle session sees those who were on show on Sunday afternoon returning to conclude their matches.
Sunday Recap
Eight matches concluded on Sunday and three lower ranked players made their way through to Judgement Day. The first of those was Wu Yize who absolutely did a job on Tian Pengfei beating him 10-2. Si Jiahui won all six frames in the second session to dump Tom Ford out 10-5 and Jak Jones came through in a deciding frame against Robbie Williams. Elsewhere, there was a 10-4 win for Barry Hawkins over David Lilley, Stephen Maguire beat Alfie Burden by the same score. Fan Zhengyi ended the run of Iulian Boiko 10-8 while Chris Wakelin was an emphatic 10-2 winner over Aaron Hill and Jordan Brown took care of Dominic Dale 10-7.
Morning Session
Ryan Day narrowly missed out on qualifying for the World Championship automatically when he went out in the quarter final of the Tour Championship. He will be looking to make the most of his second chance when he opens up his campaign against Ashley Hugill on the main table. Zhou Yuelong is the next highest ranked player on show on Monday morning. He will go up against James Cahill for a place at Judgement Day while on the other streamed tables we will see Pang Junxu meeting the former champion Ken Doherty and Jimmy Robertson facing the Belgian youngster Ben Mertens.
There are four matches getting underway away from the streamed tables and one of those will see Liam Highfield going up against Elliot Slessor while Yuan Sijun takes on Scott Donaldson in the match between the two closest ranked players against each other. Jamie Jones faces Xu Si in another of the matches while Oliver Lines will look to as good as secure his tour status when he takes on Anthony Hamilton, who begins his qualifying quest here.
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Afternoon Session
The matches in the afternoon session will be the ones which started on Sunday afternoon and return to finish. One the main table we have Dave Gilbert looking to convert a 6-3 lead against Barry Hawkins while Hossein Vafaei has the same lead when he returns against Andrew Pagett. There could be a surprise on one of the other streamed tables when Jackson Page comes back with a 5-4 lead on Martin Gould and in the other game the Scottish Open finalist Joe O’Connor takes on Andrew Higginson and leads 5-4 at the restart.
It is a shame that the Joe Perry against Sanderson Lam match isn’t on a streamed table because with Perry trailing 5-4 upon the resumption that could get pretty nervy. Sam Craigie is another who has just a narrow lead. He’ll resume 5-4 up on Dave Grace. The biggest advantage away from the streamed cameras belongs to Matthew Stevens. He will begin 7-2 up on Jamie Clarke while the other match sees Mark Davis 5-3 up on Lyu Haotian.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like to begin with on Monday but I can’t get that phrase that Ryan Day used in an interview about hating qualifying because of the surroundings out of my head and while I still expect him to beat Ashley Hugill, all the pressure is on Day and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he makes heavy weather of coming through, particularly given that admission he made at the Tour Championship.
The other thing to factor into the equation is that Hugill, who has qualified for the Crucible before, has played two matches in this campaign and while he won both 10-8 against lower ranked opposition, he is match sharp, battle hardened and might be able to catch Day cold early on. We saw Day look really good in the balls at the Tour Championship but the rest of his game was found wanting and he hasn’t really done anything since winning the British Open. He might also feel a comedown from being so close to qualifying automatically and just missing out. You can get Hugill with a 3.5 frame start and I think he can stay that close in a match where Day has everything to lose and now a whole lot to gain.
Tips
Back A.Hugill (+3.5 frames) to beat R.Day for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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