There's a bumper day of snooker for patrons of the Beijing Students University Stadium, with eight China Open first round matches scheduled for play on Tuesday and of those ties, the one involving Ryan Day and
ROBERT MILKINS could throw up a shock result.
The Gloucester cueman came through a wildcard round against Chinese youngster Lu Chenwei on Monday, albeit unspectacularly, and he could pose the Welshman a few problems and is a fair price at 21-10 with Boylesports. It's been a decent thus far for Milkins and he finds himself up to 36th in the provisional rankings – from 55th – and he has the game to beat a player who has been out of sorts in general this year.
On paper, the 13-10 with Betfred about a Jamie Cope victory against Mark Williams looks worthy of further investigation, but there are two problems with this: 1) Cope is very hit and miss most of the time, brilliant one match and average the next, and 2) Williams is in a rich of vein at present and is a tough nut to crack. This is probably just a match to savour rather than get stuck in to.
There do look to some bankers on the card with JOHN HIGGINS a shoo-in to beat Fergal O'Brien at 1-4, DING JUNHUI the same price to get past Gerard Greene and STEPHEN MAGUIRE is better value at 4-9 to win his clash with Barry Hawkins.
Puntinplay' 50-1 outright tip MARCO FU gets his bid for the title underway with what looks a straightforward clash with Bjorn Haneveer. His Belgian opponent made heavy weather of beating Chinese player Yu Delu on Monday, needing a deciding frame to clinch his place in the draw, and at 4-11 Fu should easily see off the European.
That leaves Mark Allen, a 4-7 shot to beat former China Open winner Graeme Dott (13-8), but that is a game to leave alone as it really could go either way, while NEIL ROBERTSON is a cert at 1-4 to beat journeyman pro Mike Dunn.
