10th July 2012
Hawkins vs Guodong Betting: Exciting Chinese youngster looks to have every chance against Hawkins
Barry Hawkins qualified automatically for the Australian Goldfields Open courtesy of all the big name non entries and he will be looking to make full use of that qualification by going as far as possible in the tournament. He takes on the Chinese rising star Xiao Guodong in the first round of the tournament on Wednesday in a match bookmakers expect him to win as he is a top price 8/13 with Blue Square.
Barry Hawkins won the Sky Shootout at the start of the year and many thought that might really kick start his career and he would go on and win a number of ranking events but that hasn’t really been the case so far in his career. He lost in the first round of the Wuxi Classic a couple of weeks ago against Mark Selby and didn’t really show anything like his best snooker. He may need to show that here to win.
Xiao Guodong will be the next Chinese star in the sport. I don’t think that is going out on a limb as a prediction but he’s that good. He scores very heavily like all the young players do these days but he isn’t as bad as some in the safety department. Primarily his game is all about potting balls though and he does that very well indeed hence why he is already rising in the rankings quite quickly.
I think Xiao has every chance here. Hawkins is rarely absolutely perfect in the safety department and if you leave Xiao in and it is a going day you won’t see the table again in that frame. Xiao’s a good potter from distance and shorter range and he will put a lot of pressure on the Hawkins safety game. When he’s on Hawkins can clear any table but he hasn’t been in that form since he won the Shootout which leads me to take Guodong here.
Back X.Guodong to beat B.Hawkins for a 4/10 stake at 2.50 with Ladbrokes
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Author: 'Arry Allsports
