4th July 2012

Lee vs Stevens Betting: Stephen Lee can continue his excellent 2012 by moving into the last 16 of 6 red championship

The Six Red World Championship has reached the knockout stage know with the last 32 and last 16 matches due to be played out across three sessions of action in Bangkok on Thursday. The pick of the morning matches sees Stephen Lee taking on Matthew Stevens in the last 32 for a place in the last 16. The matches now move up to the best of 11 frames and Lee is the 4/5 favourite to win with Boylesports.

Stephen Lee came through as winner of Group F in the first round of the tournament. He lost just one of his five matches as the form horse of the end of last season picked up where he left off in this one. Only Stuart Bingham was good enough to beat Lee in his group and it was a group which featured the likes of Jimmy White as well as Bingham. Lee won his last two matches 5-0 so he’ll be full of confidence here.

Matthew Stevens pulled out of the Wuxi Classic last week citing a bad back but he appears to have no problems with that score this week. He came through a tricky looking group in fourth place but he was always comfortable in terms of qualifying. He won three of his matches, against Tom Ford, Marcus Campbell and Krzysztof Wrobel with defeats to Ricky Walden and Noppon Saengkham.

This should be a good match between two confidence players who suit this format well but for me Stephen Lee just has the edge given that he’s been in such amazing form in 2012. He is clearly playing well this week and Stevens has put in the odd shocker which he won’t be able to get away with here. Lee is playing well and he moves the cue ball with such ease which is important in this tournament as the final red is often wedged to the pink and needs cannoning. It’s no surprise to me that Lee is playing well and I’ll take him to make the last 16 from this one.

Back S.Lee to beat M.Stevens for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Boylesports