There is one session of play at the World Series of Darts Finals on Saturday and it comes along in the evening when the second round of the tournament is played out in what looks like being a very good night of arrers in Amsterdam.
This is the session of play where the seeded names come into the competition with each of them playing one of the winners from Friday. That means we get to see the likes of Michael van Gerwen, Gerwyn Price and Peter Wright for the first time this weekend.
First Four Matches
The evening begins with the man who threw the best darts of his life on Friday night when Mervyn King takes on the eighth seed Madars Razma. King averaged 115.62 in beating James Wade 6-0 but the Latvian can take comfort from the fact he has won both previous meetings with the King. When they are done Gary Anderson will be back on the big stage looking to make it into the quarter final. He meets the Dutch youngster Niels Zonneveld, who could be dangerous if he is allowed to be. The third match of the night sees the recently crowned World Grand Prix champion Jonny Clayton on stage. He takes on another local lad in Vincent van der Voort before we reach the halfway mark of the evening when the former World Matchplay champion Dimitri Van den Bergh takes on the reigning Grand Slam of Darts champion Jose de Sousa.
Later Four Matches
Fallon Sherrock is the second seed this weekend after her amazing exploits in Copenhagen last month. She begins her campaign in this tournament in the first match in the second half of the night. The ‘Queen of the Palace’ faces a tough test though in the form of Krzysztof Ratajski. When they are done it will be the turn of Peter Wright to get things back on track after that very worrying European Championship showing. He goes up against Kim Huybrechts in a good looking match. The last two matches both involve Dutch stars. The penultimate match of the evening sees Gerwym Price beginning his title defence against the former World Grand Prix finalist Dirk van Duijvenbode before Michael van Gerwen opens up his quest for the title against countryman Maik Kuivenhoven.
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Betting
I had a couple of winners on the opening night of the tournament and I’ll take two more on Saturday evening as well. The first of those comes in the form of Jose de Sousa to beat Dimitri Van den Bergh. I was going to take Van den Bergh on whether it was de Sousa who came through the first round or Noppert. To be fair to the Belgian he won a Players Championship event last week but did nothing in the other three and he goes into this match having lost his last two TV matches having had match darts in both – eight in the case of his Copenhagen semi-final loss to Fallon Sherrock. If they creep back in here he’s in trouble because de Sousa looked very good on Friday night. He spoke after the game about how recent health issues had cleared up and he averaged 104 in beating Danny Noppert 6-2 and missed just one dart at a double in those eight legs. The ‘Special One’ holds a 6-2 head to head advantage over the ‘Dream Maker’ and having had a match on the stage already and looking good with it, I fancy de Sousa to extend that to 7-2.
I’ll also take on Peter Wright who has now lost his last three TV matches. It isn’t so much the losing them that is a concern but the way he has lost them, none more so than that last one against Florian Hempel in the European Championship. By his standards Wright was terrible and I lost count of the number of sets of darts he used in that match. He wasn’t much better in the Players Championship events last week where he went past the second round just once in the four tournaments. I don’t know if something is up off the oche but on it there are concerns for Wright. That doesn’t appear to be the case for Kim Huybrechts though. He had a great week on the Players Championship scene last week where he made the semi-final of the first one, losing to eventual winner Van den Bergh, and making the quarter final of the last of those events. Among his victims on the week for Gabriel Clemens, James Wade and Michael van Gerwen which obviously gave the Belgian oodles of confidence because he looked very good in beating Michael Smith here on Friday evening. He averaged 98.5 in that match despite missing 15 darts at a double. If he tidies that up he’ll be more than a match for Wright but if the Scot doesn’t improve on recent showings Huybrechts might not even need to improve his doubling. Either way he looks a great price based on the recent form of these two.
Tips
Back J.de Sousa to beat D.Van den Bergh for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Coral
Back him here:
Back K.Huybrechts to beat P.Wright for a 3/10 stake at 3.40 with Bet365
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