The second day of action at the Players Championship Finals in Minehead sees the 32 remaining men whittled down to eight on what is a busy Saturday where two rounds of matches will be played across two sessions of tungsten tossing.
The last 32 will be played out in the afternoon before the format elevates and the remaining players relax for the last 16 in the evening session. Time restraints will deny us a chance to look at the last 16 but we can go through the last 32.
Main Stage
There is a clash of youth and experience to open up affairs on the main stage on Saturday afternoon when Callan Rydz takes on James Wade before one of the pick of the matches in this round takes place as Rob Cross faces Nathan Aspinall. Ryan Meikle had a good win on Friday night and he’ll be looking to back that up against the comeback king Gary Anderson, who from 4-0 down in his opening match might be free rolling now. Peter Wright has openly admitted he doesn’t like this venue but he’ll like it a little more if he can see off Adrian Lewis in match four of the afternoon.
When they are done we have the big clash of the round as Michael van Gerwen meets Raymond van Barneveld before Gerwyn Price and Martin Schindler meet for the second tournament in a row. Schindler beat Price at the Grand Slam and will be looking to repeat that here. The action on the main board concludes with the World Grand Prix champion Jonny Clayton meeting Scott Mitchell and Dimitri Van den Bergh facing Danny Noppert.
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Stage Two
Two seasoned campaigners will be given the honour of leading the action off over on Stage Two when Andy Boulton, who had a good win over Joe Cullen in the first round, takes on Vincent van der Voort before two Ryan’s take to the stage as Searle meets Joyce. It goes to start the strength in depth in the sport right now that the third match on this stage sees Michael Smith taking on Daryl Gurney in a contest that deserves a much bigger setting than the one it has. Brendan Dolan meets Ritchie Edhouse after that.
Damon Heta and Gabriel Clemens both had good seasons on the pro tour and one of them will move into the last 16 of this event when they meet on Saturday afternoon before Ross Smith faces the man who loves Minehead in Luke Humphries. Two of the best that Europe has to offer finish off the action on Stage Two when Krzysztof Ratajski takes on the man who repelled 10 180s from Chris Dobey to come through the first round in William O’Connor before the number one seed Jose de Sousa meets Darius Labanauskas.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount I like in this round of matches. I’m not a fan of betting on these best of 11 leg matches and losing my bet on Bunting from 4-0 up on Friday night hasn’t exactly enthused me about them anymore either. I do think Ryan Joyce is overpriced in his match against Ryan Searle though. I sense this is a big match for Joyce. If he comes through here then he could do a bit of damage over the weekend.
You can say the same for Searle of course but his ranking is such that he’s going to get into most of the TV events now whereas Joyce still has a little work to do in that regard. One area where Searle needs improvement is his doubling which was pathetic on Friday afternoon and if Simon Whitlock wasn’t in one of his bottlejob days Searle would have been toast. I don’t see Joyce coughing up many opportunities here so ‘Heavy Metal’ needs a big improvement on the doubling else he’ll be a goner here. Usually you can’t afford to miss the 20 darts at double that Searle missed in the opening round and survive in these best of 11s. Even if Searle does improve in that area we saw at the Grand Slam that Joyce can maintain a 100+ average so he’s too big here.
Tips
Back R.Joyce to beat R.Searle for a 3/10 stake at 2.80 with Betfair
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