The four quarter finals are on the menu at the World Open on Friday as the last Chinese event of the snooker season plays down to the one table situation and towards us finding out who will pocket the monster first prize on Sunday.
We lost a couple of big names on Thursday but there are still plenty of them around for the quarter finals. We have two particularly juicy clashes to look forward to and a couple which could provide a decent opportunity for those involved.
Morning Session
The pick of the matches in the morning session is the best of the quarter finals as Judd Trump continues his defence of the title when he goes up against the man who has been spoken about as a rival in the form of Kyren Wilson. That will be the centre of the TV coverage but the match on the other table might be the more interesting one because it pits two players lower down the rankings against each other as Elliot Slessor meets Jackson Page with a spot in the semi-final and a guaranteed £32,500 on the line.
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Afternoon Session
The later session is definitely the better of the two on Friday. The TV table will have the home star Ding Junhui looking to make it through to the semi-final. He meets a Hossein Vafaei who will need to come down from beating Ronnie O’Sullivan in the main draw of a tournament for the first time. The other match sees two renowned tournament winners going at it as Neil Robertson looks to continue his recent form when he goes up against a Barry Hawkins, who appears to be coming good when it really matters once again.
Betting
I’ve been siding with Elliot Slessor so far this week but I actually think that this could be the time to take him on as a favourite. I’ve felt that bookmakers have been underplaying him this week so far but that isn’t the case on Friday, but you can’t ignore the form of Jackson Page in this tournament. Anyone who takes out John Higgins, Wu Yize and Mark Selby in the space of a few days merits a lot of respect and that is the run of Page so far.
To be fair, that run of form has come out of nowhere because he had been having a very ordinary season but he smacked in three tons and a couple of other decent breaks in beating Selby on Thursday and he had a ton in each of his other two matches as well so he is scoring brilliantly. Slessor isn’t scoring badly but we saw at the Welsh Open that when he got into a position where he was the favourite to progress in the semi-final against Martin O’Donnell he failed. If he struggles as a favourite here then Page is playing more than well enough to get rid of him.
Tips
Back J.Page to beat E.Slessor for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back him here:
