The second round of the men’s BDO World Championship gets underway on a tasty looking Wednesday inside the Lakeside County Club in Surrey, and alongside that the first round of the women’s draw comes to a close too on a big day of darts.
We are now up to the best-of-seven sets in the men’s matches which should see the quality improve, and with the standard of player on show, that improvement should be a natural one. The world number one Mark McGeeney is one of a number of big players on stage on Wednesday.
Afternoon Session
We get the second round underway with an all-Dutch battle between the deliberate but extremely good Wesley Harms, and the rat-a-tat style of Willem Mandigers, who could be forgiven for wondering how he won his first round match so easily against Paul Hogan given that almost every statistic went against him.
The final match of the opening round of the women’s draw follows them as the multiple time champion Trina Gulliver gets another campaign underway when she plays the Polish star Karolina Podgorska for the right to face Lorraine Winstanley in the quarter final. The afternoon concludes with potentially the tie of the second round as Michael Unterbuchner takes on Wayne Warren in a cracking looking battle.
Evening Session
It is men’s matches all the way in the evening session and the world number one Mark McGeeney is the first of many stars onto the stage for the second part of the day. He takes on fellow Englishman, Conan Whitehead, before two Welshmen meet when Jim Williams takes on Dean Reynolds in what could be the most intriguing match of the day.
The quality certainly doesn’t end there either as there is another former champion on the stage in the final match of the evening when Scott Waites goes up against the Finders Masters finalist Richard Veenstra in a contest which promises to be a real juicy battle if both show the form they did in the first round.
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Betting
I’ll take three over the course of the fifth day of the tournament. Wesley Harms did well enough in beating Tony O’Shea in the opening round and although he didn’t cover the handicap for me I’m going to give him another chance in this one because over seven sets I don’t see Willem Mandigers being consistent enough. To be fair if Hogan had hit even a quarter of the doubles he aimed at Mandigers wouldn’t have got close to him. I don’t see Harms having much a meltdown on the doubles so the former semi-finalist to win by at least a couple of sets suits me here.
I’m very surprised that Wayne Warren is the outsider to see off Michael Unterbuchner here. I say that because Warren thrashed the German at the World Masters last year and put in the highest average of the tournament so far in demolishing his Welsh teammate Mark Layton in the first round. Playing a friend is often tough so there might even be more to come from Warren in this match which is a scary thought. Warren is a relentless scorer and I’m not convinced he’ll have enough of a mare on his doubles for Unterbuchner to come through here.
In the final match of the night I fancy we will see the 180s flow when Richard Veenstra and Scott Waites collide. They have to cover a 10.5 180s line which on the face of it looks pretty hefty but when you think about it there should be five sets in this at the very least so it is only one per set each and then one on top. Both men hit eight 180s in their first round win so if either goes ballistic on the treble here they will go close to covering this line on their own. Veenstra hit seven 180s in a 4-0 romp over Geert de Vos in this round last year. Waites’ new weapons look designed for 180s. We should see 11 of them here given the length this match is likely to be.
Tips
Back W.Harms (-1.5 sets) to beat W.Mandigers for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
Back him here:
Back W.Warren to beat M.Unterbuchner for a 4/10 stake at 2.30 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back R.Veenstra vs S.Waites – Over 10.5 180s for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with BetVictor
Back it here:
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