The televised darts tournaments come thick and fast at the minute and just days after Jonny Clayton won the World Grand Prix, 32 tungsten tossers head to Salzburg for the European Championship, an event which has been heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic restricting the European Tour to just two events which has given us a lop-sided field.
Peter Wright won this title last year and he has done enough in the two qualifying events to take his place in the field in order to attempt to defend his crown but there is no place in the 32 man line-up for the likes of Jonny Clayton, Gary Anderson or Daryl Gurney.
Recent Winners
2020 – Peter Wright
2019 – Rob Cross
2018 – James Wade
2017 – Michael van Gerwen
2016 – Michael van Gerwen
2015 – Michael van Gerwen
2014 – Michael van Gerwen
2013 – Adrian Lewis
2012 – Simon Whitlock
2011 – Phil Taylor
The Format
The four day tournament sees the action coming thick and fast with the first round played across the opening two nights of action on Thursday and Friday evening. They are over the best of 11 legs before we move into the second round across the best of 19 legs on Saturday afternoon and evening. The quarter finals are also the best of 19 on Sunday afternoon before the two semi-finals and the final is played out in a big Sunday evening session with all three matches being the best of 21 legs. The tournament can be watched in full on ITV4.
Top Half
The draw this week is based on the standings in the European Tour Order of Merit, which with only two events is very different to how it might normally have looked. Gerwyn Price won both of those and as such he is the top seed and the main man in the top half. He is going to have his work cut out to make the final though because some huge names are in his half of the draw. They include Michael Smith, Nathan Aspinall and Michael van Gerwen so immediately this looks like a tough half.
That is before you see the likes of James Wade and Krzyztof Ratajski in this half as well. Damon Heta is also in here as is Ryan Searle, who looked in excellent form at the World Grand Prix last week. Danny Noppert made the semi-final there and he is looking for more wins from this half while Mervyn King and Gabriel Clemens are live sleepers. Whoever comes out of this half will have played well you suspect.
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Bottom Half
This is the half of the draw where the defending champion Peter Wright will look to retain the title from. He only made it here as the number 15 seed though so he isn’t going to have the kindest draw known to man. The leading four seeds in this half are Mensur Suljovic, the man who will be roared on by a home crowd this week, Simon Whitlock, Jose de Sousa and Brendan Dolan, who had a good run in one of the qualifying events.
This half of the draw doesn’t look as loaded as the other one with some of the lesser lights who had a couple of good weekends on the European Tour all seemingly making their way into this bottom half of the draw. Luke Humphries reached the semi-final of one of those and is in here as are Joe Cullen and Rob Cross but of the lower ranked players you get the feeling it is only Kim Huybrechts, Keane Barry and Callan Rydz who have the potential to go particularly deep in the tournament.
Betting
Usually this is a tournament that I like getting stuck into from an outright point of view because the European Order of Merit often throws up the chance for big guns clashing early and the draw to open right up as a result, however the fact just two events were used to determine the draw this week means that by and large the potential winners are going to be able to ease their way into the event and gather at the business end, which makes life tougher for us punters.
There is one bet which stands out to me though and that comes in the form of Luke Humphries, who was actually the runner up the last time ITV covered a ranking event, way back at the UK Open. That suggests that he can cope with the pretty heavy workload over the weekend which is very much a positive. Callan Rydz isn’t the easiest first round draw but if he comes through that he meets a Jose de Sousa who looks out of touch at the minute before a possible quarter final with Brendan Dolan. It isn’t an easy draw but if Humphries hits his doubles it could be a lot harder. ‘Cool Hand’ looked very good in the World Grand Prix last week but just ran into an insanely good Ryan Searle in their last 16 clash. The lack of a double start should suit Humphries a lot more though and the 28/1 on him going one better than he did in Minehead in March appeals to me.
Tips
Back L.Humphries to win European Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Bet365 (1/2 1-2)
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