The quarter finals conclude and the first semi-final will be played in the World Grand Prix on Friday with all the action being played in one prolonged session of snooker inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes due to the broadcaster showing racing earlier in the day.
The draw has opened up a little in the half where the quarter finals will be played but there are still two top 16 players there to keep us entertained. That is the starter before the top two players in the world meet in the main course in the opening semi-final.
Mark Selby vs Hossein Vafaei
The quarter final which will be on the main table sees the European Masters and Scottish Open champion Mark Selby looking to continue his fine form when he takes on the Iranian star Hossein Vafaei who could really make a huge breakthrough in his career over the next few days.
Selby looked in excellent form coming into this tournament and he has oozed quality this week, taking the strong challenge of two solid campaigners who played well against him head on and delivered even better snooker of his own. He may well need to repeat that here because Vafaei will be confident having dumped Zhou Yuelong and Ding Junhui out of the competition so far. These two have met twice this season and Selby has won on both occasions. I expect him to win here too but Vafaei has enough quality to keep this interesting and sway me from betting involved in it.
Zhao Xintong vs Jack Lisowski
The quarter final which will be played out over on table two sees two of the most talented players in the game battling it out when the Chinese star Zhao Xintong bids for a place in a rare TV semi-final when he faces Jack Lisowski for whom the time has come to turn himself into a serial winner.
Xintong has come through the draw nicely this week with wins over Jamie Jones and John Higgins, with a couple of classy tons against the latter, while Lisowski has matched that with very appealing wins over Shaun Murphy and Robert Milkins with his own barrage of scoring in that time. This will be a good match to watch because these players are very easy on the eye but at this stage of the tournament I expect Lisowski to be the one to assert his dominance. Lisowski has spoken a lot recently on wanting to shirk this winless tag he is carrying around and has the chance to show a ruthless streak here. These two play the same game but for me Lisowski does it just that little bit better and can win here.
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Judd Trump vs Ronnie O’Sullivan
The first semi-final of the tournament sees the leading two players in the world doing battle as the world number one Judd Trump continues his quest for a third title of the season when he goes up against the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan for a place in Sunday’s final.
We’re all hoping that this will be a pearler of a contest but you would have to say that Trump appears to have a bit of an edge over O’Sullivan at the minute. The first reason for that is he believes that he can and will beat the world champion and we’ve seen a lot of evidence in recent times that not everybody does that. That means Trump is capable of playing his best snooker against O’Sullivan and putting it simply right now his best is better than Ronnie’s. Ronnie can still turn it on but his long game doesn’t look to be in the shape he needs it to be to compete with Trump so I expect the world number one to have a bit in hand in coming through here.
Tips
WON – Back J.Lisowski to beat Z.Xintong for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betfair
Back him here:
Back J.Trump (-1.5 frames) to beat R.O’Sullivan for a 3/10 stake at 2.05 with William Hill
Back him here:
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