The second round of the World Grand Prix takes place out in Hong Kong on Thursday when the entirety of the last 16 will be played out across another two sessions of action as the opening Players Series event continues at a pace.
We should have had eight matches on the card but with Jack Lisowski withdrawing from the tournament we are down to seven as 14 players battle it out for a place in the quarter final of the competition.
Early Session
The world champion gets us underway on the main table when Kyren Wilson looks to make it into the quarter final when he goes up against the man who just won the World Open last week in the form of John Higgins in what looks to be the standout match of the day. Over on the other table at the same time we have another former world champion on show when Stuart Bingham takes on the young Chinese sensation Wu Yize.
The second part of the early session is the one where we are down to just the one match from the scheduled two after the withdrawal of Jack Lisowski. It means that the English Open champion Neil Robertson will be upgraded to the main table for his clash against the man who has had a solid season without quite making it through to the very latter stages of one in the form of David Gilbert. This is a huge match for Gilbert as he’ll be off to World Championship qualifying if he loses this but Robertson hasn’t ensured he won’t be heading there yet so a competitive battle is expected.
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Later Session
We have a full session of action in the later part of the day and on the main table we will see The Masters winner Shaun Murphy looking to go a step closer to avoiding the World Championship qualifiers when he meets the UK Championship finalist Barry Hawkins, who has done everything but win a title this season. At the same time, Xu Si will look to build on his win over Ding Junhui in the previous round when he meets Hossein Vafaei, who came through a rollercoaster first round match against Si Jiahui.
Mark Selby probably should have been out of this competition having trailed Jackson Page 3-2 in the first round with the Welshman in amongst the balls but he turned it around and he will play on the main table against another player who probably felt he was heading out on Wednesday in Jimmy Robertson, who was 2-0 down to Mark Allen before winning 4-2. The last match on the other table sees two Chinese winners of tournaments this season when Xiao Guodong faces his compatriot Lei Peifan.
Betting
Hossein Vafaei did me a turn on Wednesday but you only had to look at him to see that he was in agony with whatever is wrong with his arm or shoulder throughout that match. Even then, he would probably have lost but for an outrageous fluke to allow him to force a respotted black which saw him go 2-2 and with that injury and a potential lack of practice as a result of that I think he is likely to be there for the taking for a Xu Si who looks to be improving into a decent little player.
To be fair to Xu Si, he wasn’t at his best in the first round but I suspect that was down to playing his idol Ding Junhui who he’d lost twice to this season, however the longer that match went on and it was evident that Ding wasn’t at his best, Xu took control and in the end looked the most likely winner and closed out the deal. I think we are going to see a much better performance from a man who has Stuart Bingham, Mark Williams, Jack Lisowski, Ryan Day, Judd Trump, Gary Wilson, Robert Milkins and Ding Junhui on his list of victims this season and if we do then he is overpriced at 7/5.
Tips
Back X.Si to beat H.Vafaei for a 3/10 stake at 2.40 with Betfred
