The opening week of the World Championship comes to a close on Friday as the second round continues across three more sessions of play inside the iconic Crucible Theatre.
Two matches begin on Friday while the two that began on Thursday will also continue throughout the day and by the conclusion of Friday we will know our first quarter finalist in this year’s tournament.
Thursday recap
The final day of the first round promised to be a classic and that is how it proved to be as Judd Trump staged a remarkable comeback from 7-3 down against Liang Wenbo to win 10-8 and set up a mouthwatering clash with Ding Junhui in the second round.
More drama took place in the evening when the match of the tournament so far saw Kyren Wilson edge out Joe Perry in a deciding frame. The match had everything, including the two centuries we needed for our bet to come in but in the end the Shanghai Masters champion held his nerve to progress.
The second round also got underway in Sheffield on Thursday and after the first sessions of their matches Marco Fu and Ali Carter have 5-3 leads on Anthony McGill and Alan McManus respectively.
Carter dominated against McManus and 5-3 was the worst result he could have come out of that session with and he’ll be expecting to push further ahead on Friday before that match concludes on Saturday.
Surprisingly the standard in the first session of the McGill and Fu match was dreadfully poor but I expect that to change on Friday when the two men play out their match over two more sessions in the morning and the evening.
McGill might be 5-3 down but he is far from out of the match and I believe he might actually benefit slightly from being behind. Going into the match he would probably have given himself every chance of winning and felt a bit of extra pressure and it showed. Now he can relax and give this a good go and at 5/2 there’s value in the Scot to overturn that deficit and come out the victor.
Mark Williams vs Michael Holt
Two more matches set off on their journeys on Friday and the morning session sees the twitter lovers going head to head when Williams faces Holt. Both men looked in fantastic nick in the opening round and if they can both perform like that again then we will be in for a classic.
I guess the big question is whether both can repeat those standards again and it is those doubts which make the match hard to bet on really. I’m expecting Williams to win but he’s no price to do so and given that I’ll let this one play out its course.
Mark Selby vs Sam Baird
World number one looks to continue to protect the points he earned when he won this title two years ago when he faces Sam Baird in the second round of the tournament. Baird is the lowest ranked player left in the draw now but anyone who has seen him play will know he is much better than his ranking.
Baird proved an awful lot to himself and everyone else in the first round when he held himself together under real tension and pressure to deliver three breaks of the highest quality to see off Michael White in a really good game.
Mark Selby had to fight off a really strong challenge from Robert Milkins in the first round and he can be grateful the interval came when it did in the second session of that match else he could have been heading down the M1 having been beaten.
These two have met twice in official competition and while Selby has won both matches they have both gone to a deciding frame which is interesting. I saw enough from Baird in the first round to suggest he is going to play a significant role in this match. I don’t see him winning but the scoring power he showed can be good enough to win at least eight frames if not a couple more.
Tips
Back A.McGill to beat M.Fu for a 3/10 stake at 3.50 with Ladbrokes
Back him here:
WON – Back S.Baird (+5.5 frames) to beat M.Selby for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
