The entire round of 16 in the World Open takes place on Wednesday when all eight matches are played across two sessions over in Yushan on a day where we will determine who will go through to the quarter finals.
We have seen so many shocks this week that the tournament is wide open and any of the 16 remaining players will fancy their chances of going deep in the competition and potentially lifting the trophy on Saturday.
Afternoon Session
Barry Hawkins is the highest ranked player on show in the first session of the day. He meets a familiar foe in Ryan Day for a place in the last eight. John Higgins is another high profile player competing in the afternoon. He would have been expecting to meet the world champion Kyren Wilson but Zhou Yuelong didn’t get that script and it will be the Chinese player who is opposing him instead. We are guaranteed a Chinese quarter finalist from this session because two home stars meet when Pang Junxu faces Xu Si while Liu Hongyu takes on Zak Surety in a huge opportunity for both men.
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Evening Session
The pick of the matches on Wednesday takes place in the evening session when two men who are genuine title challengers meet but only one will progress to the quarter final when Ding Junhui takes on a Shaun Murphy who is yet to lose a frame in two matches. Ali Carter is another top 16 player left in the draw and he’ll look to make the quarter final at the expense of David Lilley. Tom Ford is our one remaining outright pick and he’ll face off against Jimmy Robertson while in the other match Joe O’Connor will look to build on his fine win over Judd Trump in the previous round when he takes on Michael Holt.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like over the course of the day on Wednesday but one outsider who probably isn’t getting the credit that he deserves is David Lilley. He has already seen off Mark Allen and Wu Yize in deciding frames so he shouldn’t be fearing anything that he encounters from Ali Carter when they meet. Lilley forced a deciding frame the last time these two met but he is clearly hitting the ball nicely to beat two class acts like Allen and Wu.
Carter has seen off Jack Lisowski in this tournament so he isn’t going along too badly either but the one thing we know with Carter is that he can get in his own way at times and while I think he will win this match I’m not convinced he is going to have this all the way that he wants it. You can get 5/6 on Lilley winning three frames if you back him with a +2.5 frame handicap and given the open look to the draw I think we’re going to get a lot of close matches from here. This can be another one of them.
Tips
Back D.Lilley (+2.5 frames) to beat A.Carter for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betfred
