The final European Tour event prior to the break for the World Series exhibitions takes place this week as the PDC circuit treads new ground by taking a tournament to the Czech Republic for the first time with the inaugural Czech Darts Open being staged in Prague.
Michael van Gerwen currently heads the European Tour order of merit and he is looking to put a few more quid into his rivals this weekend as he gears up for a tour of the globe over the next few weekends.
The Format
We are using the same format as last season for these tournaments which means that the last 32 of the tournament is played over two sessions of action on Saturday, with the last 16 on Sunday afternoon and the quarter finals on Sunday night. They are all the best-of-11 legs with the semi-finals also on Sunday evening. They are the best-of-13 and then the final in the same session is the best-of-15 legs. The draw has been pre-determined and is played in a straight knockout format.
Top Half
Michael van Gerwen is obviously the number one seed this week and as such he is in the top half here. He will be looking for another European Tour success but as always there will be seven seeds looking to get the better of him in this half of the draw. This weekend they are Darren Webster, Mensur Suljovic, Ricky Evans, Peter Wright, Joe Cullen, Daryl Gurney and Jonny Clayton so MVG could have his work cut out at times here.
Stephen Bunting is probably the biggest name of the qualifiers in this half of the draw although the likes of Danny Noppert, Chris Dobey and Jermaine Wattimena have claims of disputing that. The other four men in this section of the draw are Keegan Brown, John Henderson, Ted Evetts and William O’Connor so there are some good tests waiting for the seeds this weekend.
Bottom Half
It is Ian White who is seeded to make the final from the bottom half of the draw this weekend after a wonderful run in these events so far this season. As with the top half there are a number of good seeded players looking to challenge him here. They are the UK Open champion Nathan Aspinall, Adrian Lewis, Steve Beaton, James Wade, Michael Smith, Gerwyn Price and Simon Whitlock so to say this is a competitive half of the draw would be an understatement.
That is especially the case when you throw the qualifiers into the mix too with Glen Durrant the obvious standout of those. Corey Cadby is back on the scene and he is in this half of the draw too. The other six qualifiers are Mervyn King. Jamie Hughes, Karel Sedlacek, Andrew Gilding, Ron Meulenkamp and Justin Pipe so whoever comes through this bottom half of the bracket will have certainly played well.
Betting
The draw this week is so competitive so it is hard to find anything that looks like value so it is a case of picking someone who you think could outperform their odds and give us a run deep into Sunday and for that I’ll take the current BDO world champion Glen Durrant, who averaged 110 in his match to get into the last 32 on Friday.
There is no real point going through the draw this week, it is tough for whoever you select, but should he beat Gerwyn Price in the last 32 on Saturday then it could open up a little for him given the competitive action we are going to see. Durrant is good enough to come through any draw anyway so at 33/1 I’ll take him this week.
Tips
Back G.Durrant to win Czech Darts Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with 888sport (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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