The first day of the Players Championship Finals sees the entire first round played out over two sessions on two boards down in Minehead as the penultimate tournament of the year gets going at quite a pace.
That means that we are set to see everyone in the tournament throughout the day with everyone eager to get winning to boost both their confidence and their earnings heading into the World Championship next month.
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Afternoon Session
We get underway on the main stage with a battle of the Dutchmen as Jeffrey de Zwaan takes on Jelle Klaasen before Max Hopp looks to make progress when he plays the dark horse for this tournament in Steve West. Keegan Brown then goes up against Benito van de Pas, who has replaced Mensur Suljovic for this tournament, with Adrian Lewis then looking to begin his quest for a TV title. He plays Adam Hunt before three good looking matches round off the session on the main board. Simon Whitlock plays Kyle Anderson in the first of those while Daryl Gurney then takes on Robert Thornton. James Wade and Ross Smith round off the session on the main stage.
Two steady players will meet in the first match on the second stage in the afternoon as Brendan Dolan plays Michael Barnard. Josh Payne then goes up against Ryan Searle before the Germans take over for a bit. Nathan Aspinall meets Martin Schindler and then Gabriel Clemens faces Andrew Gilding. Ryan Joyce and Steve Lennon follow those. Mervyn King is up in the afternoon when he plays Simon Stevenson before Steven Bunting and Richard North do battle. Mickey Mansell plays the Latvian player Madars Razma and the action concludes with Dave Chisnall playing Jamie Lewis in a match which may well get moved to the main stage.
Evening Session
It is stars all the way on the main stage in the evening session. The first player up is Ian White. He goes up against the lesser known Scott Taylor before Gary Anderson meets Alan Tabern. Rob Cross is third onto the stage when he plays Cristo Reyes before the big first round clash between Krzysztof Ratajski and the Grand Slam of Darts champion Gerwyn Price. Peter Wright then plays Toni Alcinas before Michael van Gerwen begins his title defence against Matthew Edgar. The night is rounded off by Michael Smith playing Vincent van der Voort.
Jermaine Wattimena and Stephen Burton take on each other to open up the evening in the back room before John Henderson plays Joe Cullen in a match which should be worth getting on the stream for. Jonny Clayton plays fellow Welshman Mark Webster in the third match of the night with Ricky Evans playing Jan Dekker following them. James Wilson then meets Dimitri Van den Bergh in the match of the day on the outside board before Danny Noppert plays Rowby-John Rodriguez. The last three matches sees Chris Dobey playing Ron Meulenkamp, Darren Webster facing Jeffrey de Graaf and Steve Beaton meeting Kim Huybrechts.
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Betting
I’ll go with three bets over the course of the day with the first one coming in the afternoon where I think Josh Payne can come through against Ryan Searle. Searle is still pretty new to the big stage whereas courtesy of the World Youth Championship, Payne has a little more experience and that comfort in the surroundings can be a big thing. We saw Searle struggle at the Grand Slam last week where he never averaged 90 in any of his three matches. That won’t beat Payne, who played well there and can take the positivity from there into here and pick up the win.
Moving into the evening and I like Chris Dobey to beat Ron Meulenkamp. Dobey leads their head to head meetings 2-0 and there is no doubt in my mind he is the better player of the pair. It is true that this hasn’t been his best year but generally when he gets the chance to prove his worth in the big tournaments he does it and I don’t think he’ll need to be anything special to beat Meulenkamp. While it hasn’t been the best of years for Dobey he has still made two finals including one last month. That’s the form I like here so I’ll take him to see off the Dutchman.
Finally I’m going to take Kim Huybrechts to beat Steve Beaton. We’ve not seen Huybrechts on our screens for a while and that in itself should give him the motivation to deliver the goods here. His wife was in the qualifying event for the women’s World Championship recently so there is no reason for Kim not to have been on the practice board and if he is near his best he should have too much for Beaton. You have to beat Beaton. He doesn’t beat himself but at the same time he doesn’t blow players away so with that in mind I’m pretty happy to be on the Belgian here.
Tips
Back J.Payne to beat R.Searle for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back him here:
WON – Back C.Dobey to beat R.Meulenkamp for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
Back him here:
Back K.Huybrechts to beat S.Beaton for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfred
Back him here:
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