The qualifying competitions for the upcoming snooker tournaments come thick and fast at the minute and after the Xi’an Grand Prix preliminaries have been concluded we begin the Wuhan Open qualifiers on Sunday.
42 players will take to the baize on Sunday across the three sessions of play, each looking for the five frames that they need to be on the plane to Wuhan in October and there are some big players looking to book their spot on Sunday.
Morning Session
Si Jiahui narrowly made it through his Xi’an Grand Prix qualifier with Jimmy White and he will be looking to secure a second main draw outing in the space of a week when he headlines the morning session on Sunday. He takes on his countryman Gong Chengzi. There are actually Chinese players in all but one match in the first session of qualifying. He Guoqiang is another who made it through to Xi’an last week and he’ll be looking to beat Baipat Siripaporn to book his spot in Wuhan while Fan Zhengyi meets the other female up in the morning in Mink Nutcharut. Chris Wakelin will look to book his spot in Wuhan at the expense of Ma Hailong while Xu Si faces Ian Burns and Sanderson Lam takes on Huang Jiahao. Stephen Maguire is also in action against Ka Wai Cheung.
Afternoon Session
We have a couple of top 16 players on show in the afternoon as the Scottish Open and Welsh Open winner from last season, Gary Wilson, goes up against Alexander Ursenbacher for a place in the main draw while Barry Hawkins takes on Jiang Jun. Anthony McGill is another leading name on show on Sunday afternoon. He meets Simon Blackwell while Ricky Walden will go up against Mostafa Dorgham. Robert Milkins is another recognisable name competing in this session and he meets Farakh Ajaib with the other two matches seeing Jamie Clarke facing Alfie Burden and Aaron Hill going up against Ashley Carty.
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Evening Session
Three more top 16 players take to the baize in the evening session with Mark Selby the highest ranked player looking to make it to Wuhan. He faces Long Zehuang for that privilege while Shaun Murphy goes up against Michael Holt in another game. John Higgins is the third top 16 player on show and he has an awkward test against the Belgian youngster Ben Mertens. Jamie Jones is on show in this session when he faces Haris Tahir while Joshua Thomond meets Allan Taylor. The other two matches see Robbie Williams playing Kreishh Gurbaxani and Dominic Dale taking on Jimmy White.
Betting
You would expect Stephen Maguire to beat Ka Wai Cheung but whether he beats him well enough to cover a 2.5 frame handicap is a different story entirely. Cheung took Ryan Day the distance in the Xi’an Grand Prix qualifying last week and knocked in three tons in the four frames that he won so he is clearly hitting the ball quite nicely because you don’t do that if you are not. Usually you don’t do that in your first full match on the tour either so he must have something about him.
Maguire is never the best starter to a season and he is never the best qualifier going around either, although to his credit he cruised past Ken Doherty to book his spot in Xi’an. Maguire didn’t pull up many trees in his Championship League group so it is hard to know exactly how the Scot is playing here. I still think he’ll win but Cheung has four tons in the nine frames he has won this season and if he can get in a couple of times here he can get to three frames if not the five he desires.
Tips
Back K-W.Cheung (+2.5 frames) to beat S.Maguire for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Boylesports
Back him here:
