King Kurt can carry on scoring well in Home Nations bash

Eurosport 1, 1pm & 7pm Wednesday

Kurt Maflin is producing some fine snooker this season and the Norwegian is likely to have too much for Elliot Slessor in their Northern Ireland Open second-round clash.

However, rather than back Maflin to defeat his opponent, it could be wiser to punt the selection to make the highest break of the best-of-seven-frames clash.

Maflin, who is playing better this season than last, compiled runs of 133, 122 and 114 in a last-64 defeat to Ryan Day in the International Championship in October.

On the way to reaching the quarter-final in Shanghai last week he made breaks of 135 and 119 against Yu Delu, and in his opening 4-1 win over the useful Andrew Higginson in Belfast he made back-to-back breaks of 120 and 140.

That sort of scoring suggests he could be a handful for whoever he meets this week and considering Slessor is pretty consistent when it comes to making half-centuries, siding with Maflin to post the single highest contribution of the match may be the way to go.

Judd Trump joined Kyren Wilson in exiting the Belfast tournament early and Ronnie O'Sullivan was just 5-2 to add to his English Open crown before his first-round clash with Lukas Kleckers.

Recommendation
K Maflin highest break v E Slessor
1pt 1-2 bet365

Follow us on Twitter

Like us on Facebook