After a week full of drama, excitement, tension and pressure at the Lakeside Country Club we are all set for the final of the BDO World Darts Championship where for the first time in 19 years the two top seeds will meet when Glen Durrant faces Mark McGeeney.
Both men have had their battles this week but they are now one win away from being the world champion and pocketing a massive £100,000 winners cheque.
Glen Durrant
The number one seed and the defending champion has had an emotional week. He cruised through the opening two matches without too much difficulty but then he found himself 4-1 down to Jim Williams in the quarter final and he was staring a switch to the PDC squarely in the face but having recovered to win 5-4 he is now one win away from being just the fourth man to defend this title successfully.
We saw last year that Durrant is the best player in this code and we have seen that again this year. He recorded a 100+ average which is rarely seen in this tournament in that win over Williams and the way he overpowered Scott Waites in the semi-final showed us that he is not too disappointed that his PDC dream is over.
Mark McGeeney
The BDO world number one is in his second major final in the space of three months. Having tasted defeat in the Winmau World Masters final he will be looking to make up for that and win the biggest title in the BDO in his first finale. If he is to do that though you would think he will need to massively raise his game.
McGeeney has been forced to work a lot harder for his place in the final. He was taken to a sudden death deciding leg in the first round by Martin Adams and then after an impressive win over Danny Noppert in the second round he once again went the distance in the last eight before coming through. His semi-final was a tighter affair than he would have liked too.
Head to Head
These two have met on eight previous occasions. Mark McGeeney could be forgiven for thinking that facing Glen Durrant was easy having won their first two meetings but he has lost each of the six since then so you have to go back three years for his last win over the Teesider. Their last meeting came in the England Matchplay which Durrant won 4-1 while their biggest meeting was in the 2016 World Masters final. Duzza won 6-3 on that occasion.
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Betting
It is hard to oppose Glen Durrant in this final. In fact it is near enough impossible. If Mark McGeeney’s best game is going to come out this week it will be here because for the first time he is the underdog but if we are being brutal about it his best game is not as good as Durrant’s and that is his big problem.
I fear this could be a largely one-sided final and as such I’m going for it to last leg less than 44 legs. I think the periods Durrant dominates he will really push on like we saw in the match against Jim Williams and any tight sets may go his way too as McGeeney feels the pressure. I don’t think we’ll see more than 11 sets here and with a couple of one-sided sets the final should be decided in leg 44 or earlier.
Tips
Back Under 44.5 legs for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfred
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