UK Snooker Championship Day Five Bet: Gentleman Joe can edge out Fu to reach semis

Baize Betting / Paul Krishnamurty / 17 December 2008 / Leave a Comment

It's likely to be tight at Telford as O'Sullivan's conqueror meets Marco Fu for a place in the semi-final of the UK Championships. Paul Krishnamurty can't see either man dominating as he files another daily bet for the competition...

It's been a great week so far, with all four daily bets delivering the goods. Now it gets a little harder, as there are no weak links to oppose. Any one of the eight quarter-finalists could very plausibly land the title, and now Ronnie is out, I doubt any of the matches will be one-sided from here on.

Both of Wednesday's matches look very close. Its hard to take a strong view about the Williams/Carter game, but on yesterday's evidence Joe Perry should be just too strong for Marco Fu.

'Gentleman Joe' has long been under-rated as an also-ran, but yesterday's outstanding performance to knock hot favourite Ronnie O'Sullivan out of the event was the strongest evidence yet that he has 'arrived' as a top player. Perry's snooker to win the last seven frames was flawless, but to be fair it was no fluke. Since his career highlight when reaching the semis at the last World Championship, Perry had twice been nudged out by O'Sullivan in deciding frames.

His opponent Fu is no mug though, and has already knocked out two decent players in Matthew Stevens and Barry Hawkins.

Perry very rarely thrashes anyone, and Fu is unlikely to be any different. I can see this match being a traders dream, with both of them trading at short odds-on in a tight, topsy-turvy affair. So rather than take the [1.75] about Perry to progress, I'm having a trio of correct scores, 9-8, 9-7 and 9-6, which equates to roughly [2.7] combined.

Recommendations:

Joe Perry to win 9-8 @ [8.0]
Joe Perry to win 9-7 @ [9.0]
Joe Perry to win 9-6 @ [9.0]