The English Open from Brentwood begins on Monday. James Cooper has looked at the held over matches along with the confirmed last-64 ties and recommends two bets.
Snooker betting tips: English Open from Brentwood
1pt Ashley Hugill +1.5 frames to beat Ryan Day at 11/10 (Sky Bet, Betfred)
1pt Liu Hongyu to beat Shaun Murphy at 4/1 (William Hill, BetVictor)
With the season still very much in its infancy, a cursory glance at the early results (excluding the Championship League) featuring Ryan Day and ASHLEY HUGILL reads four wins to two defeats for the former and four wins and three defeats for the latter.
As ever though, performances must be put into context and it’s very clear that Hugill has had a tougher schedule in comparison to Day.
The higher the figure, the tougher the opponent faced based on my player ratings, with the median figure for Hugill 0.57 in comparison to 0.45 for Day.
Yes it’s a small sample but that is a big difference and given his draws so far, Hugill has exceeded expectations and the match prices in this best-of-seven encounter may not fully back that up, for all we know plenty about both players aside from this season.
It’s effectively 1-2 Day v 2-1 Hugill (who is available at 21/10 at the time of writing) with me and the best way to play this looks to be siding with the underdog +1.5 frames.
That’s available at 11/10 with a couple of firms, which is more than acceptable given I rate Hugill’s chance of winning the match or losing a decider at 53%.
Purely from a numbers perspective, Matt Selt looks a shade of value at 10/11 to beat Michael White but I have an appalling record over a long period of time betting on matches involving the mercurial Welshman so I am happy enough to leave that alone.
Instead, the other bet I like is LIU HONGYU to cause an upset against Shaun Murphy.
A tour card winner via the Asia-Pacific route, Liu Hongyu has already announced himself as a heavy break builder and he’s performed with credit so far, losing a decider to Ding Junhui last week having been very competitive against Matthew Stevens and Jackson Page.
Shaun Murphy was back to his very best at times last season but it’s been a solid if unspectacular start to this campaign.
He made a series of errors against Rebecca Kenna in the British Open last week and while he was never in danger of losing that match, his subsequent defeat against Jack Lisowksi from 62 points up in the decider (albeit to a masterful dish) would have hurt.
A fully-focussed and in-form Murphy is a match for anyone but his expansive game in a short-format event will suit the young Chinese player and while his rating is hardly a robust one, there’s enough juice in the 4/1+ (he’s 17/4 with Unibet) to risk him in favour of a more conservative handicap bet.
Posted at 1245 BST on 01/10/23
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