Stuart Bingham has endured a disappointing start to the season and will be looking to pick up a confidence-boosting victory over fellow Englishman Sean O’Sullivan in their International Championship qualifying match on Tuesday evening. Stuart Bingham has endured a disappointing start to the season and will be looking to pick up a confidence-boosting victory over fellow Englishman Sean O’Sullivan in their International Championship qualifying match on Tuesday evening. Bingham enjoyed an impressive 2016/17 season, winning the Welsh Open for the first time while also reaching the finals of the Six-red World Championship and China Championship.
Much of the same was expected in the 2017/18 campaign but the 2015 world champion has failed to produce anything close to his best and the results have been very poor so far. The 41-year-old from Essex has failed to make it past the third round of any tournament and has been knocked out at the first hurdle in the Riga Masters, China Championship and Paul Hunter Classic. However, despite the poor form, the Englishman has been handed arguably one of the easier qualifying matches for the International Championship and he will be confident of getting past O’Sullivan.
This will be the first meeting between the pair and Bingham has vast amounts of experience compared to his opponent, who is yet to go past the last-16 stage in his career. O’Sullivan has lost in qualifying four times this season while his best result so far this term came at the Indian Open, where he reached the second round. World number 11 Bingham, who is yet to lose in qualifying in this campaign, is the 1.15 favourite to win in Preston whilst his compatriot is priced at 5.00 to pull off a huge shock. Elsewhere on Wednesday evening, world number 13 Allister Carter, who is a two-time World Championship finalist, will take on fellow Englishman Jamie Curtis-Barrett whilst Welshman Jamie Jones goes head-to-head with England’s John Astley.
Snooker odds available at Dafabet.