After an age of waiting, the PDC European Tour can finally get underway this weekend and it does so with the Hungarian Darts Trophy, the first of the two events which will make up the order of merit for the European Championship later in the season.
This is the first time this tournament has been held with the PDC having to tread new territories given the travel restrictions that are in place across the continent. A top field has been assembled for what should be a great tournament.
The Format
It has been a while since we’ve had a European Tour event so it would have been easy to forget the format but we have 16 seeds placed in the draw and they meet one of the qualifiers in the last 32 over the two sessions of play on Saturday. The last 16 of the competition takes place on Sunday afternoon with the quarter finals through to the final all in the evening session on Sunday. The event is the best of 11 legs up to and including the quarter finals. The semi-finals is the best of 13 legs and the champion will be crowned over the best of 15 legs.
Top Half
The seeds for the event were based on the European Tour rankings from last season which means that Joe Cullen is the number one seed and he is in the top half of this event. He’ll be hoping for a big run this weekend but there are seven seeds who are up against him, looking to deny him that. They are Rob Cross, James Wade, Devon Petersen, Michael van Gerwen, Brendan Dolan, the world number one Gerwyn Price and Damon Heta for whom I’m sure this will be an emotional weekend.
The qualifiers have now been placed in the draw and they are probably headed by the UK Open finalist Luke Humphries, while Daryl Gurney and Simon Whitlock have had to go the scenic route to make it into the event. Former BDO stars Geert de Vos and Richard Veenstra have both qualified for the tournament and are in this top half. Ross Smith, Alan Soutar and William O’Connor make up a competitive set of qualifiers in this half.
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Bottom Half
Everywhere you look in the bottom half of the draw there is a good section and that is because the quality of the seeds are so strong. The Grand Slam champion Jose de Sousa is the highest seed in the bottom half but if he is going to live up to his seeding and make the final he’ll need to come through a half which includes the World Matchplay champion Peter Wright, Michael Smith, Dirk van Duijvenbode, Mensur Suljovic, Premier League winner Jonny Clayton, Nathan Aspinall and Krzysztof Ratajski.
The talented Irish youngster Keane Barry probably heads up the qualifiers in the bottom half of the draw. John Michael edged out Steve Beaton to make it through to the last 32 and the other qualifiers in this section are William Borland, Florian Hempel, Lewis Williams, the Czech youngster Adam Gawlas, Bradley Brooks and Joe Murnan. This is the weaker half for qualifiers but they’ve all had a match and could do some damage.
Betting
Given that everyone has been inactive for a while this probably isn’t a tournament to go too mad on but it is also one which might yield an unfancied winner as the draw opens up with the big players having rust to shake off and the qualifiers having all played a match on the stage on Friday. The bottom half looks a bit of a minefield to me and even though the top half has Gerwyn Price and Michael van Gerwen in it, the fact only one of those can make the semi-final makes me think this is the half to have an outright bet in.
Luke Humphries might just have landed himself in the plum spot in the top quarter. I say that because the last time we saw Devon Petersen in the World Matchplay his game was all over the place and he hasn’t had competitive time to improve that since then. Humphries may then face James Wade who he beat at the Matchplay before a quarter final against Joe Cullen or Rob Cross if it goes to the seedings. There’s nothing to fear there either so at 50/1 I’ll pay to see if the UK Open finalist can catch fire and go through the draw.
Tips
Back L.Humphries to win Hungarian Darts Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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