8th July 2012

Higginson vs Day Betting: Andrew Higginson can enhance his top 16 claims with win over inconsistent Day

The second set of matches in the middle session of action on the opening day of the Australian Goldfields Open in Bendigo sees Andrew Higginson taking on Ryan Day in another all non-top 16 clash for the right to face either defending champion Stuart Bingham or Matthew Selt in the last 16 of the tournament. Higginson is ranked higher of the two players and he is the 9/10 favourite with Boylesports.

Andrew Higginson has been knocking on the door of the top 16 for a while now but as of yet still hasn’t barged the door down. However if he can keep progressing to the latter stages of tournaments the door will eventually open. Higginson is probably most in the memory of people at the minute for being the man who lost to Ronnie O’Sullivan from 4-0 up in the German Masters earlier in the year, a result which allowed Ronnie to stay in the top 16 and go on to win the world title.

Ryan Day looked a really promising talent a few years ago. He had forced his way into the top 16 and you felt he could challenge for most tournaments but he has fallen away a fair bit since then and that’s no longer the case really. He enjoyed a good World Championship but that was the only bright spot in a thoroughly disappointing campaign last season.

This is only Day’s third match of the year having lost in the qualifiers of the Wuxi Classic and that could be a key point here. Higginson also lost in the qualifiers for the Wuxi Classic but he played in the Six Red World Championship last week so has plenty of match practice under his belt and I would expect him to win this one. At the minute he’s the better player and with Day struggling overall with his game and nowhere near as consistent as he was it is the Widnes man for me.

Back A.Higginson to beat R.Day for a 4/10 stake at 1.90 with Boylesports