The third round of the World Championship qualifying competition concludes across what promises to be quite a dramatic day in Sheffield on Monday and by the end of the three sessions we will know the 16 matchups which will determine the qualifiers for the Crucible Theatre.
Eight matches start in the morning session and finish in the evening one while the afternoon is made up of the second session of the eight matches which got underway on Sunday. Each winner will be one win from finishing their season at the Crucible so there is plenty on the line here.
Morning Session
Ali Carter will get another World Championship campaign underway on Monday when he competes on the main table when he takes on Ian Burns. There are three other streamed matches in this session which sees Thepchaiya Un-Nooh going up against Crucible specialist Matthew Stevens, Hossein Vafaei going up against Duane Jones and there is an all-Chinese clash between Wu Yize, one of the players of the entire campaign, and Jiang Jun.
Four other matches take place on the outside tables on Monday morning and conclude on Monday evening with Robert Milkins looking to move to within a win of the Crucible Theatre when he meets Wang Yuchen while Scott Donaldson will also be in action against He Guoqiang. Stephen Maguire is another Crucible regular on show in this session. He goes up against Gao Yang while in the other match the Scottish Open champion Lei Peifan opens up his campaign against David Lilley.
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Afternoon Session
There could be plenty of mileage in the afternoon session, particularly on the main table where the former world champion Stuart Bingham resumes trailing Michael Holt 5-4. There is another 5-4 match on one of the other streamed tables when Stan Moody comes back for his second session with Jimmy Robertson leading by that score. Pang Junxu has a much healthier 7-1 lead over Ashley Carty while Joe O’Connor will need four more frames to beat Iulian Boiko when they resume with the Englishman 6-3 up.
In the matches away from the streamed cameras Jackson Page will have little work to do when he resumes with an 8-1 lead on Allan Taylor while Xu Si will need to turn around a 6-3 deficit to Jamie Jones if he is to make Judgement Day. Fan Zhengyi had to work hard to open up a 5-4 lead on Robbie Williams but you sense that there is a lot of snooker left in that match and that is the case with the other one too as Matt Selt will come back 4-3 up on an Anthony Hamilton who has to win to keep his professional status.
Betting
Robert Milkins met Wang Yuchen in the Welsh Open a couple of months ago and beat him 4-1 and I think he might well be good value to cover a 2.5 frame handicap against the Chinese player over the longer distance here. Milkins is one of those who can get into a rhythm over the longer format and while he hasn’t been playing particularly great this season we can assume he would have been putting in a fair bit of work for a tournament which is key to him after his recent drop down the rankings.
Wang Yuchen didn’t play overly great in the opening round with just a couple of breaks over 50 against a poor opponent and then he benefitted from the suspension of Graeme Dott in the last round so there is a bit of a gulf between these two and it hasn’t been bridged by two wonderful performances from the Chinese player here. This is the sort of match that if Milkins can get out in front early he can run away with and I’ll back him to do that and in turn win no worse than 10-7 although I think it will be a bit more comfortable than that.
Tips
Back R.Milkins (-2.5 frames) to beat W.Yuchen for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
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