There is one darts tournament before the big one next month and it takes place inside the Ricoh Arena in Coventry and begins on Friday when the Players Championship Finals is played out behind closed doors.
The leading 64 players on the Players Championship Order of Merit all qualify for this event, which by nature of its format and the fact the draw is done on that ranking list, opens up the potential for big shocks.
Recent Winners
2019 – Michael van Gerwen
2018 – Daryl Gurney
2017 – Michael van Gerwen
2016 – Michael van Gerwen
2015 – Michael van Gerwen
2014 – Gary Anderson
2013 – Michael van Gerwen
2012 – Phil Taylor
2011 – Kevin Painter
2010 – Phil Taylor
The Format
Unlike some events, the 64 man field is seeded by their final position on the Players Championship Order of Merit which gives us a completely different seed list to when the world rankings are used. Number 1 plays number 64 in the first round, 2 vs 63 and so on. The first round takes over the two sessions on Friday and is the best of 11, as is the second round on Saturday afternoon and we then move up to the best of 19 for the last 16 on Saturday evening and the quarter finals on Sunday afternoon. The remainder of the tournament takes place on Sunday evening over the best of 21 legs with the winner taking home a cool £100,000.
Top Quarter
Usually it is Michael van Gerwen who goes into tournaments as the number one seed but we are on the Pro Tour rankings this week which means that the world champion Peter Wright is the top seed. There are three other top 16 seeds in this quarter of the draw and they are headlined by the recent Grand Slam of Darts winner Jose de Sousa. Michael Smith will be eyeing up a TV title from this quarter while Ryan Searle, winner of one of the early Players Championship events, is the other top 16 seed.
There are plenty of other big names in this quarter, not least the former champion Gary Anderson who is seeded at 23. Adrian Lewis and Simon Whitlock are household names who will be looking for a good weekend while another former winner is in here in Daryl Gurney. World Matchplay champion Dimitri Van den Bergh is another star name in this section while the likes of Vincent van der Voort and Keegan Brown will be out to cause a surprise or two.
Second Quarter
Nathan Aspinall is the leading seed in the second quarter. He would like a decent weekend to take with him into the World Championship but he might have his work cut out just to make it out of the quarter because he could have to come up against Krzysztof Ratajski who is the fifth seed this week. The other two members of the top 16 seeds in this quarter are the Australian player Damon Heta and Dutch star Danny Noppert.
As with the first quarter there are a few big names in the remainder of this quarter with Dave Chisnall and Mervyn King among them. Former world champions Scott Waites and Steve Beaton are in this quarter as well as is another Lakeside winner in Stephen Bunting. Among the rising stars in this section is Chris Dobey while Kim Huybrechts will be looking for a morale boosting weekend over the course of this tournament.
Third Quarter
Gerwyn Price failed in his quest for a three-peat at the Grand Slam of Darts recently but he is the number two seed in this field and will be out to show his worth in it. On the face of it the Welshman looks to have a pretty nice draw because the other three top 16 seeds in the quarter all lack the experience of going deep in TV tournaments. They are Ian White, Joe Cullen and Jermaine Wattimena, who are all solid enough but seem to have their limitations.
Former world champion Rob Cross has had plenty of problems in recent times but he’ll like this draw if he has ironed out the kinks in his game. Other notable names in this section are the improving Devon Petersen, the classy German player Gabriel Clemens as well as rising stars such as Adam Hunt, Martijn Kleermaker, Steve Lennon, Luke Humphries and Ricky Evans. You would think Price is a hot favourite to come through this quarter.
Bottom Quarter
Michael van Gerwen will attempt to defend the title from the bottom quarter this week but he is going to have his work cut out if that is to happen because this section of the draw is absolutely loaded with quality, not least from those in the top 16 seeds. Those three players are James Wade, Glen Durrant and Brendan Dolan who was in pretty decent nick much earlier in the year but could still be a threat here.
There are plenty of decent names on show in this quarter as well although it has weakened slightly with Mensur Suljovic having withdrawn from the tournament. There is still the World Cup winner Jonny Clayton as well as Jeffrey de Zwaan, the World Grand Prix finalist Dirk van Duijvenbode and one of the better players who hasn’t really got much of the TV limelight in Ryan Joyce who actually won a Players Championship event earlier in the year.
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Betting
I’ll go with a couple of outright bets this weekend with the first of them being on the Polish player Krzysztof Ratajski who has been playing pretty well in recent times. He was unlucky to be in the Group of Death in the Grand Slam last week but he can make up for it here as he is in the easier of the four quarters. He has a couple of winnable best of 11 matches to build up a head of steam ahead of the format going up to 19 legs over the second part of the weekend. Ratajski is the number five seed here which shows how well he has been going over the course of the year and it is only a matter of time that he follows Jose de Sousa into the TV winner circle. Ratajski is 22/1 to win this tournament and given his draw that looks a perfectly fair price to me.
At double the price I’ll also take a chance on Ian White. He got better as the Grand Slam of Darts went on but then ran into a formidable performance from James Wade in the last 16 but he is another for whom the next step is to go deep in a TV event and as the number seven seed he has the chance to make big progress this week. The two main opponents in his quarter are Gerwyn Price and Devon Petersen but they are both in the other half of the section so White will only need to overcome a maximum of one of them to come out of the quarter. We’ve seen shock winners and finalists of this tournament in the past and at 50/1 I’ll pay to see if White is another of them.
Quarter Betting
There is also one quarter bet which catches my eye and that comes in the top quarter where Simon Whitlock is playing some lovely darts at the minute and can build on his runs to the semi-finals of the World Grand Prix and Grand Slam of Darts over the last month or so. He is hitting 180s like they are going out of fashion at the minute and looks to be in a really good place mentally and is enjoying his darts again which is good to see.
You could argue that had he not had the emotional highs of beating Michael van Gerwen in those two tournaments that he could easily have gone on and won at least one of them which is encouraging as he is nowhere near van Gerwen in this quarter. He has a tough little run given that he faces Adrian Lewis and potentially Peter Wright in the first two rounds but over the best of 11 they are both beatable. It could open up for him by the time the longer formats come into play and that would serve him well. He feels overpriced for this quarter at 16/1 with Wright not pulling up any trees and de Sousa surely due a comedown after such an emotional win.
Tips
Back K.Ratajski to win Players Championship Finals (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 23.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back I.White to win Players Championship Finals (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 51.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back S.Whitlock to win 1st Quarter for a 1/10 stake at 17.00 with Sky Bet
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