The Bank Holiday weekend is here which means we have another European Tour darts event to look forward to. This time it is the European Darts Grand Prix which takes place in Sindelfingen in Germany.
Many of the best players in the world are heading to the continent this weekend to take part in the tournament which offers £25,000 to the winner and most likely a place in the European Championship later in the year.
Recent Winners
2017 – Peter Wright
2016 – Michael van Gerwen
2015 – Kim Huybrechts
2014 – Mervyn King
The Format
The format for these events are becoming second nature now. The 16 seeds play one of the 16 qualifiers in the first round over two sessions of action on Saturday with the tournament finishing on Sunday with the last 16 in the afternoon and the quarter finals, semi-finals and the final in the evening.
The first round up to the quarter finals are all over the best of 11 legs before we move up to the best of 13 legs for the two semi-finals. The champion will be found over the best of 15 legs in the final.
Top Half
Michael van Gerwen is back in European Tour action this weekend and he is the number one seed which puts him in the top half of this draw. As ever there are a number of decent seeds looking to beat him with Daryl Gurney and Michael Smith the main ones. Dave Chisnall is a seed in this half too while Ian White has dumped MVG out of one of these events already this season. Mervyn King, Darren Webster and Jelle Klaasen make up the seeds.
There are some decent or dangerous qualifiers in this part of the draw too. Alan Tabern is the first of them while Robert Marijanovic, Matt Padgett and Madars Razma make up the unseeded players in the first quarter. Jamie Lewis, Paul Nicholson, Arron Monk and Jermaine Wattimena make up the top half.
Bottom Half
It is all about Peter Wright in terms of the seedings in this bottom half although I would imagine the world champion Rob Cross will hope to have something to say about that. He isn’t the only one either. Gerwyn Price, Joe Cullen, Kim Huybrechts, Mensur Suljovic, Simon Whitlock and John Henderson are all seeds with big weeks in them.
James Wade is probably the headline qualifier in this bottom half although Vincent van der Voort and Danny Noppert both hide in this part of the draw too. Martin Schindler and Kyle Anderson are likely to be dangerous too. The rest of the field is made up by Jamie Caven, Jan Dekker and Kirk Shepherd.
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Betting
This doesn’t look like the greatest draw to get too stuck into this week. There isn’t a lot of value in among the seeds and not many of the attractive qualifiers have fallen into the right positions. I do fancy one bet over the weekend though which will hopefully give us a good run.
James Wade has made the semi-final of two European Tour events already this season and he has made a final and another semi-final on the floor too. In fact that semi-final came last weekend so he is clearly in good form. He emphasised that on Friday when he took down the form horse Max Hopp to make it into the last 32. Rob Cross could be a significant hurdle to overcome in the last 16 but Wade beat him earlier in the year and if he can get through that this draw could open right up. At 33/1 he’s worth a go.
Tips
PLACED – Back J.Wade to win European Darts Grand Prix (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with BetVictor (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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