With four rounds at Leicester already behind us, the Barbican Theatre hosts the final 32 competitors in this year’s UK Championship, which continues on Saturday. James Cooper has three bets.
Snooker betting tips: UK Championship
2pts Shaun Murphy to beat Zhao Xintong at 11/10 (bet365, Paddy Power, Betfair)
1.5pts Xiao Guodong to beat Dave Gilbert -1.5 frames at 11/10 (General)
1pt Peifan Lei to beat Zhang Anda at 11/5 (bet365)
Zhang Anda v Peifan Lei
- Tuesday, 1900 GMT
A very unassuming player, PEIFAN LEI’s progress this season has gone largely unnoticed, but having regained his tour status via the Asia Pacific Tour this spring, Lei has found serious improvement in the break-building department this term.
A classy century in a decider against Tom Ford in round three was followed by a dominant win against Ben Woollaston to book his place for York and back-to-back wins against established players indicate that Lei is maturing as a player having fallen off the tour and failing to get back on at the first attempt.
A gut-wrenching 10-9 defeat having been plenty in front in the decider against Hossein Vafaei with a Crucible place on the line back in 2021 probably took a long time to get over but a last-16 finish in Northern Ireland during the autumn was a good return and Lei also picked the right event to go quite deep in as he picked up 20k in the lucrative Saudi Arabia Masters.
Lei has also qualified for the event proper in Scotland next month so he’s clearly going through a purple patch and a last-32 clash with Zhang Anda may well be within his compass on recent form.
I’ve mentioned before that Anda has a very high-level A-game but he remains very vulnerable when not firing on all cylinders, falling at the first hurdle a couple of times this season and recording just the one quarter-final spot so far following a career-changing 2022/23 campaign.
In short, we’ve got a match-fit player who is exceeding expectations this season taking on a slight underachiever and while no-one can argue that Anda deserves to be favourite for this best-of-11 clash, the 11/5 available about a Lei win looks slightly too big.
Xiao Guodong v David Gilbert
- Saturday, 1900 GMT
Luca Brecel at 6/4 against Jak Jones is tempting but it’s really hard to make a case for the Belgian on his performances for a while now so he’s omitted from calculations, with XIAO GUODONG completing the staking plan.
I referenced the season form of Xiao pre-Champion of Champions and he continued the excellent work in no uncertain terms at Bolton, navigating a tough group despite the very definition of an unpromising position at 3-0 down to Ronnie O’Sullivan before ultimately finding only Mark Williams too strong.
His numbers this season make for seriously impressive reading and in his current mood, he’s fancied to see off Dave Gilbert.
Gilbert is a bit of an enigma these days.
He’s rarely positive about his game and having edged out Xing Zihao, a 6-1 win over Julien Leclercq looks good on the face of it but it was a low-quality match with Leclercq well below his usual level in a match featuring very few meaningful breaks.
Gilbert’s results this term have been fine to be fair to him but due to several deep runs in tournaments, Guodong’s body of work stands up to rigorous scrutiny so rather than taking the odd bit of 8/11 and general 4/6, I will risk the 11/10 that he covers the -1.5 handicap.
Shaun Murphy v Zhao Xintong
- Saturday, 1300 GMT
One of the main talking points of the week is Zhao Xintong’s Triple Crown return having successfully come through four rounds of qualifying this week.
His match against SHAUN MURPHY is interesting on a few levels and you can guarantee that Murphy will be fired up for this one having drawn a fair amount of criticism for his comments over amateur participation when losing to Si Jiahui here in 2021.
Of course, Xintong is an amateur in name only but it’s still an added dimension to what could be a cracker of a match.
Sunny Akani, Jiang Jun, Noppon Saengkham and Ricky Walden was a fairly stern test for Xintong at Leicester and he passed the test with flying colours, despite being behind early in three of those ties.
That level of form is a far better guide than his Q Tour amateur exploits and it’s hard to forget the impression he created when a devastating winner of this event in 2021.
A fair amount has obviously happened since, rather flippantly played down as a 'little mistake' by Xintong but rather than getting bogged down in the politics of his ban, focussing on his match against Murphy from a betting viewpoint is the purpose of this article.
Is Xintong currently at his peak 2021 form? Possibly, but it’s hard to be confident on just a small sample of matches would be the logical answer and for my money, the layers have perhaps given him a shade too much respect against a proven top-level opponent in Murphy.
Undoubtedly Xintong and Robertson were the two qualifiers the seeds would have been very keen to avoid, but Murphy has never shied away from a battle and I think he will relish this high-profile encounter.
Murphy’s season so far has been very good and but for Judd Trump it would have been an excellent one given Trump has had his measure three times, including in the Shanghai Masters final.
The head-to-head record strongly favours Shaun Murphy (5-1) and while a lot of those matches were very early in Xintong’s career, it’s still a factor of some merit and a very attacking match will also suit the Magician.
There’s no real substitute for hardened match play against top players, too, and while Xintong’s ability is not in any doubt, I am a little surprised he’s been chalked us as favourite for this so backing Murphy at odds-against looks a bit of a no-brainer.
Posted at 1525 GMT on 22/11/24
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.
