World Snooker Championship Betting / Paul Krishnamurty / 23 April 2009 /

At even money Marco Fu is a solid bet to send Shaun Murphy on his way as the second round of Crucible action continues, says Paul Krishnamurty.

Friday afternoon sees a repeat of last December's UK Championship final between Shaun Murphy and Marco Fu. The former edged that game 10-9, and came into the tournament with the much more prominent market position of the pair. Before a ball was struck, Murphy was trading at [17.0] to become world champion, with Fu out at [40.0].

However, those odds have changed significantly now punters have had the opportunity to take a view based on first round form. Fu is now rated likelier to win the tournament at [25.0] to Murphy's [28.0]. As for this match, they are impossible to split at [2.0].

It's hard to argue with the market momentum here. Fu was one of the most impressive first round performers, comfortably seeing off Joe Swail 10-4. Perhaps Fu has begun to earn the long overdue respect of layers, after another impressively consistent season.

In contrast, Murphy was lucky to survive a nervy encounter against journeyman Andrew Higginson, scraping through 10-8. Besides that UK Championship triumph, Murphy has barely shown his best in the last year and he looked in poor touch yesterday. So while I'm sure it will be pretty close as the odds suggest, Fu must be the pick at [2.0] to progress to the quarter-finals.

Selection: Marco Fu to beat Shaun Murphy @ [2.0]

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