The last 32 of the Austrian Darts Open takes place on Saturday across two sessions of play in the tournament. All those who remain in the competition will be out to win the one match they need to come through to get themselves to finals day.
The qualifiers are a decent standard this weekend it must be said so we have some juicy clashes up and down the card out in Austria. Mensur Suljovic will be the headline attraction and he is on last in the evening.
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Afternoon Session
The action gets underway when Mervyn King steps onto the stage to take on Jason Cullen. They are followed by Gerwyn Price who is looking to rediscover his form. He should have the ideal chance to do that against Scott Taylor. Dave Chisnall faces Wayne Jones after them and then the former world champion is up when Steve Beaton faces Luke Humphries.
After the afternoon interval Ian White will be on stage. He takes on the veteran Brendan Dolan before one of the matches of the afternoon sees Joe Cullen taking on the highly rated Steve Lennon. The afternoon concludes with Michael Smith facing Michael Barnard and Benito van de Pas playing Dimitri Van den Bergh.
Evening Session
The evening begins in potentially explosive fashion when Darren Webster goes up against Richie Burnett who is back on the big stage after his issues. Daryl Gurney hasn’t really got going in these events yet but he has the chance to do so when he takes on Ron Meulenkamp before Simon Whitlock meets the young star Adam Hunt. Jelle Klaasen and Cristo Reyes take us into the interval.
The world champion Rob Cross brings us out of the break. He faces the potentially awkward test of Steve West before Jonny Clayton, who benefitted from Michael van Gerwen’s withdrawal to become the final seed, takes on the winner from last week in Max Hopp. The last two matches of the day sees Peter Wright playing James Wade in a monster last 32 match while Mensur Suljovic rounds us off against Darius Labanauskas.
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Betting
I’ll go with two bets over the course of the day with both coming quite late into the evening session. The first, and perhaps most obvious bet of the two, sees Max Hopp taking on Jonny Clayton. Hopp knows all about carrying pressure on his shoulders having pretty much carried the expectation of German darts with him for a while so he shouldn’t be too concerned at people expecting him to win after his success last week. Clayton had a good 2017 but since the World Championship he hasn’t offered as much. He may only be in this match because of MVGs withdrawal but his lifeline could be short lived as I expect Hopp to beat him given the form he’s in.
Mensur Suljovic will be all the rage with the crowds and things but if he takes his eye off the ball then Darius Labanauskas is certainly capable of upsetting him. These two are pretty evenly matched actually in that both are consistent without being devastatingly heavy scorers and both are very good finishers. The Lithuanian is probably freewheeling here whereas the pressure will be all on Suljovic. The Austrian should win this but I can’t resist a dabble on the BDO star at 5/2. That’s a shade too big.
Tips
Back M.Hopp to beat J.Clayton for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Unibet
Back him here:
Back D.Labanauskas to beat M.Suljovic for a 2/10 stake at 3.50 with William Hill
Back him here:
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