The opening day of the UK Open was full of shocks and surprises inside the complex at Butlins in Minehead but mixed in with it was some amazing quality as the first major ranking event of the campaign kicked into life.
The big three of Michael van Gerwen, Peter Wright and Gerwyn Price all made it through to Saturday, a day which sees the last 32 played out in the afternoon ahead of the last 16 in the evening. As always time will be against us to preview the last 16 but we’ll get stuck into the earlier session.
Main Stage
The action gets underway on the main stage by two men outside the top league at present looking to move a step closer to joining the big boys as Chris Dobey goes up against Simon Whitlock. Michael van Gerwen then continues his chase for a first title this decade when he faces outsider Jason Lowe before the two ties of the round conclude the afternoon. The first of those sees Ian White going up against the world champion Peter Wright before Michael Smith meets a man who made his name in this tournament a few years ago in Rob Cross.
Stage Two
Make no mistake about it, the main stage is not hogging the quality on Saturday afternoon. Stage two has plenty of it as well and we get going with a clash of North vs South Ireland as Daryl Gurney takes on William O’Connor before Ricky Evans will look to land a blow on Gerwyn Price. The match of the afternoon on paper on this stage comes third when Kim Huybrechts faces James Wade. Gary Anderson has the honour of closing out the action on this stage when he takes on Simon Stevenson.
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Stage Three
There is plenty of good quality action on the four-match card over on stage three and it starts with a good looking match between Jonny Clayton and Joe Cullen, one which bookmakers rate as one of the tightest of the day. After they are done Mensur Suljovic faces Dirk van Duijvenbode who is in excellent form right now. Alan Tabern meets Stephen Bunting in the penultimate game of the afternoon before Dimitri Van den Bergh goes up against Matthew Edgar in the last match of the week on this board.
Stage Four
We have four more matches over on stage four on Saturday afternoon as well with the first of them seeing Jamie Hughes going up against a man who had his feet up in round four having received a bye in Martin Atkins. Steve West then duels with Jelle Klaasen in the second match of the afternoon before it turns into the German board for the remainder of the afternoon as Martin Schindler faces Kyle McKinstry and Gabriel Clemens round off the action for the week in this part of the venue as he meets Andy Boulton.
Betting
My focus from a match betting point of view comes from stage three where I am going to take Jonny Clayton to see off Joe Cullen. Clayton has good memories of this place having made the final of the Players Championship Finals here in 2017 and it probably comes as no surprise that he averaged over 103 in beating Scott Waites on Friday night. Joe Cullen has never really played his best stuff at this venue and he isn’t in great form coming in here. He took care of Mervyn King but King was well below his best in the match. Clayton has offered enough this year to make me think he is a good thing here.
When you think he started out in the first round on Friday, there is an easy case to be made for Alan Tabern being the player of the day as he came past Keane Barry, Steve Brown, Steve Lennon and Richard North. He likes it here for some reason as he usually goes well under the radar and he can do the same again in his match with Stephen Bunting, who impresses me much more as an outsider than a favourite at present. Tabern was averaging in the high 90s and into the 100s for much of Friday and that is a decent standard he was setting. Bunting held his nerve against Vincent van der Voort in his one match on Friday but he’ll need to be more convincing to win here. I like Tabern as an underdog.
Tips
WON – Back J.Clayton to beat J.Cullen for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Betfair
Back him here:
Back A.Tabern to beat S.Bunting for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Sky Bet
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