World Snooker Championship: Trump poised to get past Carter
Published:Judd Trump faces the occasionally brilliant Ali Carter in his second round match at the Crucible, with the Englishman a big 2/7 favourite to progress.
With seeds Stuart Bingham, Graeme Dott, Shaun Murphy, Stephen Lee, Martin Gould, Ding Junhui, Mark Allen and Mark Selby all crashing out, Trump is in great shape to win his maiden title after being installed as the 3/1 joint favourite.
But Carter will be no pushover for the 22-year-old who has rocketed to second place in the world following two ranking tournament wins in as many years.
Carter was excellent in his first round game, sweeping aside an unwell Mark Davies 10-2 to make it through to this second-round clash – a victory that was rounded off with a break of 132.
Carter is 11/4 to get a shock victory but perhaps a better bet may be to back him to win the first meeting between the pair with a +3.5 head start at a very tempting 1/1.
Meanwhile, former World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan is back on the baize following his convincing opening victory against another previous winner, Peter Ebdon.
O’Sullivan was close to his best at times as he claimed a comfortable 10-4 victory.
He faces Mark Williams in his last-16 clash and, with the Englishman seeing off Williams in all three of their previous World Championship meetings – as well as all of their last ten encounters – backing O’Sullivan at 4/1 to win by three to four frames could be worth a punt.
