The end is in sight for the eight players remaining in the World Open with the quarter finals being played out on Friday before the semi-finals on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s final and all eight men will fancy their chances of winning the title now.
Every match from here on in is on the televised tables and this is the last day of best of 9s on Friday so there is a real feel that the event is about to crank up another notch which would be something given the amazing snooker we’ve seen already this week.
Thursday Recap
It was another frustrating day for us in China on Thursday as we lost our last outright in Mark Williams and could only come out with one win and one defeat from our match bets to yield the tiniest of profits. Sadly Kurt Maflin ran into a bit of a storm combined with a weird injury which didn’t help but Anthony McGill got the job done for us.
Elsewhere there were easy wins for Dave Gilbert and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh who both came through without losing a frame. Ali Carter saw off Daniel Wells in a decider as did Joe Perry against Ben Woollaston while Neil Robertson completed the quarter final line up with an emphatic win over Ryan Day.
Morning Session
It is the bottom half of the draw on show in the morning session as John Higgins takes on Ali Carter in maybe the pick of the quarter finals while Anthony McGill faces Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in the other match in the session.
I’ve been a fan of McGill most of the season and I’m not going to go against him here but Un-Nooh is a streaky player and he is playing pretty well at the minute so I’m not too keen to oppose him either so I’ll leave that match alone given McGill is so short.
I’m not leaving the other match alone though. John Higgins has looked the real deal this week and the way he didn’t panic when he went 2-0 down to Mark Williams suggests to me he is comfortable with his game and full of belief that he can win matches from any position and that is a great place to be.
Ali Carter has had to come through a couple of battles in the last two rounds which will stand him in good stead if he can keep this tight but whether he’ll be able to do that against the out and out quality that Higgins possesses I’m not convinced. The two met last season and Higgins won 6-2 in a match Carter couldn’t get into and the way Higgins is playing here I fancy something similar. I’ll take the Scot to win this and do it no worse than 5-3.
Afternoon Session
Shaun Murphy faces Joe Perry in the pick of the matches in this session while Neil Robertson plays the International Championship runner up Dave Gilbert in what could be a much closer match than it looks.
I took on Shaun Murphy on Thursday but got burnt. I’m still not convinced he is playing as well as his results are making out but having been done up once I’m reluctant to oppose him twice particularly having not had the opportunity to see just how well Joe Perry is playing this week.
Neil Robertson has been the stand out player in the field this week and even though Dave Gilbert is a really underrated player I would expect Robertson to come through but Gilbert likes China and has gone under the radar this week and could have the potential to surprise the Australian.
I expect Robertson to win but there is something in the back of my mind stopping me from pulling the trigger as Gilbert is capable enough to mess things up. I’ll play safe and stick with just the one bet for the quarter finals.
Tips
Back J.Higgins (-1.5 frames) to beat A.Carter for a 4/10 stake at 2.05 with Betfair
Back him here:
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