The second round of the qualifying competition for the World Championship concludes on Saturday and the third round of the event begins as we start to get closer to determining who the 16 qualifiers for the Crucible Theatre will be.
With the third round getting underway on Saturday this will be the time where the higher ranked players enter the event which means the number one seed Jack Lisowski is one of the headline attractions across the day.
Morning Session
We begin the third round in the morning session on Saturday with eight matches which begin in the morning and then end in the evening with spots at Judgement Day the reward for those who come out on top. Jack Lisowski will be the man on the main table as the focus will be on him in his clash with Liu Hongyu, which has the potential to be awkward if he allows it to be. Three other matches will be streamed in this session with Lyu Haotian facing Daniel Wells in one of them, Anthony McGill meeting He Guoqiang in another and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh takes on Mark Davis in the other.
The former world finalist Matthew Stevens will be competing on one of the outside tables on Saturday. He has a tasty match against Jimmy Robertson which is surely deserving of a better profile. Ricky Walden has reached the last four at the Crucible in the past and he’ll be hoping to come past Ian Burns while Dominic Dale is seeded to win through this round. David Grace is his opponent. The other match sees Jordan Brown taking on a Jenson Kendrick who is the lowest ranked player on show in the morning session.
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Afternoon Session
The second round concludes in the afternoon session when those who were on show on Friday afternoon will finish off their matches. Three of the games were locked at 5-4 after the first session with David Lilley ahead of Peng Yisong by that score while Sanderson Lam is ahead of Liam Pullen by it too. Tian Pengfei is up on the amateur Mohammed Shehab in the other. Two players lead their matches 6-3 with Alfie Burden up by that score on Xu Si and Zak Surety ahead of Gao Yang too.
The other three matches have plenty of mileage in them as they were all pulled off early. Rod Lawler was predictably involved in a slow paced match but he will resume 4-3 up on the Belgian youngster Ben Mertens while the other two matches are locked at 4-4 on their resumption. Scott Donaldson is level with Peter Lines while John Astley and Ashley Carty are also all-square ahead of what feels like a big final session for both.
Betting
Matthew Stevens is usually one to watch when it comes to the World Championship but he hasn’t really shown any form coming into the tournament and he runs into a Jimmy Robertson who was red hot against Liam Davies in the previous round. Stevens has plenty of pedigree but he doesn’t have many wins to his name recently and the fact that he hasn’t played a match this week where his opponent has might not be a help to him either.
Robertson beat Davies 10-2 where he had nine breaks over 50 and generally how well the Sussex man scores is a sign as to where his game is. What made that performance all the more remarkable was that it came after two months without a competitive hit out so you would imagine that there is even more to come from him. Robertson qualified for the World Championship last year so he knows how to do it and based on the previous round I think he should be a touch shorter than he is. I’m happy to get involved here.
Tips
Back J.Robertson to beat M.Stevens for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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