After a night of quarter finals of the World Grand Prix which never really lived up to the hype on Thursday we’ve got two semi-finals that very much should do on Friday night when four of the leading players in the game battle it out for a place in Saturday’s final.
We’ve left behind the best of five set distance and gone up to the best of seven sets for these two matches so we should get an even better standard and two quality tussles as a result.
Michael van Gerwen vs Dave Chisnall
These two are no strangers to each other having met on 40 previous occasions. This will be the 12th time they have met in 2016 and unfortunately for Dave Chisnall and his fans he has won just one of the previous 11 and in truth this ‘rivalry’ is becoming so one sided it is untrue.
Whenever you have one man dominating the head to head there needs to be a leveller and as luck would have it for Chisnall the double start is exactly that. If Chisnall can pin the starting double better than van Gerwen can then he has the scoring power to do some real damage in this match. If he can’t he’ll get walloped once again.
If pushed I’d say the format will make for a closer match than these two have been playing out recently but there is no guarantee of that so in what has been a relatively quiet week for me I’m happy to sit this one out.
Gary Anderson vs Raymond Barneveld
This will be the 32nd meeting between these two darting superstars who have no fewer than seven world titles between them but surprisingly neither have ever won this title and both will be desperate to make it to the final for a shot at the title.
Gary Anderson looked fantastic in winning the earlier rounds in the competition but he struggled badly in his quarter final which has to be a concern. Raymond Barneveld has cruised through a tricky looking part of the draw without losing a set so far and that in itself highlights the form he is in but a concern could be that he hasn’t had a battle or been made to work in the competition thus far.
That is a concern but it might be that Barneveld isn’t tested here either. Anderson was awful on the doubles on Thursday night and was there for the taking for Kim Huybrechts who didn’t have the game with him to do it. Barneveld does have that game and at odds against based on what we’ve seen this week, and the fact he is much more at home in set play than match play, I’m with the Dutchman to make it to another Dublin final.
Tips
Back R.Barneveld to beat G.Anderson for a 4/10 stake at 2.75 with Coral
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