Scotland’s Anthony McGill insists he will need to improve his game if he is to get past Sheffield-based Ding Junhui in the second round of the World Championship. The 27-year-old produced a sensational comeback on Thursday to advance in his first match at the Crucible, with Ryan Day storming into the lead on several occasions. He was 7-3 and then 8-5 down on different occasions but he somehow found a way to win 10-8 after reeling off five frames in a row.
McGill admits his putting needs to improve if he is to have any chance of winning and the Glaswegian is wary of the threat that Ding will pose. McGill told the Yorkshire Post: “My potting is just not good enough and the chances are I’ll get found out in the next game, but it’s just good to be still involved. “Ding is one of the best break builders there has ever been. I’m in for a tough fight, but at least I’m in one. I’ll need to pick it up because you can dig in and all that, but eventually you have to play some good snooker. “It’s the World Championship, it’s a tournament worth trying in. You lose most of the matches from the position I was in, 99 per cent probably. But you’d lose them all if you gave up and that kind of happened last year. I was playing Stephen Maguire and I was 7-2 down and never settled. I had a bit more fight in me this year and anything can happen.”
Ding is 4/11 favourite to win on Sunday with Dafabet, while McGill is priced at odds of 21/10.
Snooker odds available at Dafabet.