The first round of the World Championship concludes and the second round gets underway inside the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield on Thursday on a day where the competition goes up a notch with the three session games beginning.
The tables get recovered on the morning on Thursday which means there are just the two sessions of play but we still have two former winners and both of the UK Championship finalists from earlier this season on show.
Day 5 Recap
We saw some excellent snooker on Wednesday as we were guaranteed to with the cast on show. John Higgins was the first man to make it through to the second round when he outlasted Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 10-7. Jack Lisowski then came through a great match against Matthew Stevens 10-8 and Kyren Wilson beat Ding Junhui by the same scoreline in what was the match of the tournament so far. Two matches are left to be completed in the first round. Judd Trump leads Hossein Vafaei 6-3 in one of them while Luca Brecel snatched the last two frames to reduce his arrears to Noppon Saengkham to 6-3.
In Play Betting
The two first round matches which are yet to be completed are the ones in play heading into Thursday. I’ll leave the afternoon one alone between Luca Brecel and Noppon Saengkham because I’m on the Belgian to win his quarter so I’m already hoping for a turnaround but I will get involved in the other one because I’m not completely convinced Hossein Vafaei is finished with Judd Trump just yet even though he trails 6-3.
I don’t think Trump is playing all that well and if Vafaei can begin the second session well then he could still have a big part to play in this match. I think the Iranian will play better in this session. He has experienced the Crucible now and knows what it is all about so he will be better prepared for what is to come. He received plenty of chances from Trump in the first session but nerves and failing to settle cost him dearly. If Trump plays the same as he did on Wednesday, and nothing we saw on Wednesday was any different to what we’ve seen all season then Vafaei can certainly make a match of it. You can get odds against on Vafaei to stay within 4.5 frames of Trump which in layman’s terms would mean he is odds against to share the first six frames. He did exactly that without playing well on Wednesday so I like that bet here.
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Jackson Page vs Mark Williams (Thursday 1pm, Friday 10am & Friday 7pm)
The first match to get underway in the second round of the competition sees the mentor taking on his apprentice when the three-time champion Mark Williams takes on his practice partner Jackson Page over the best of 25 frames.
This will be a unique situation for both men because although they’ve met once before they have never done so in an event with the magnitude that this one has. Page is dangerous but it will be interesting to see if he can be dangerous against a man who knows his game inside out. I expect a really good match as I expect both to bring the best out of each other but you’ve got to think the experience of the three session matches and the arena and everything else will be the telling factor here. I fancy Williams to win this match but hopefully the first session is close and we can have a look at it ahead of Friday.
Zhao Xintong vs Stephen Maguire (Thursday 7pm, Friday 2.30pm & Saturday 10am)
The second of the matches to start in the last 16 is one of the three-day matches to take place when the UK Championship winner Zhao Xintong continues his quest to win the two biggest ranking events in the same season when he takes on one of the two unseeded players to make it through so far in Stephen Maguire.
Maguire is unseeded in all but ranking because at his best he is a top eight player in the world and if he can play to that level in this match then he is more than capable of taking it to Xintong. The Chinese number one was in awesome form in the opening round though and if he brings that form to the table here then you would fancy he’ll be tough to beat. As with the first game though this will be new territory for Xintong and we shouldn’t underestimate that. Maguire is tried and tested at this stage of a tournament and while he’ll need to improve on his first round showing, you would imagine that will happen naturally now that he is settled into the tournament. This is another match to observe the first session and see where we go from there.
Tips
Back H.Vafaei (+4.5 frames) to beat J.Trump for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with Betfair
Back him here:
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