The last day of darts before Christmas takes place on Thursday and it does so with two sessions of play as the second round of the tournament concludes. It all begins in the afternoon inside Alexandra Palace.
The afternoon involves a trio of TV tournament finalists and a couple of the rising stars of the sport so after a thrilling day of darts on Wednesday, we should be in store for another excellent session of arrers here.
Damon Heta vs Luke Woodhouse
The afternoon gets going with the Australian World Cup player Damon Heta starting out his campaign when he takes on a Luke Woodhouse who will be hoping to follow up his win over James Wilson in the first round with another one here.
Woodhouse was hit and miss in that win over Wilson. He was low in quality in the early part of the match but the longer it went on he found his form. Once he took the lead he rammed home his advantage strongly and that is very much a positive for him. Heta goes into this match as the favourite but he has never convinced me on television and while he should come through here because Woodhouse still looks ripe for the taking, I’m in no rush to take the Aussie until I see a decent performance of two out of him on a stage like this so I’ll leave this one alone.
Brendan Dolan vs Callan Rydz
One of the best looking matches of the afternoon is the second one onto the stage when the former World Grand Prix finalist Brendan Dolan takes on one of the rising stars of the PDC in the form of Callan Rydz who had a good win in the first round.
Dolan has had a good year and trumped it with a run to the semi-finals of the Players Championship Finals last month, where he took care of the likes of Gerwyn Price and Jose de Sousa along the way. He doesn’t have a great record here though. Only twice has he been past this round and that might make him there for the taking. Rydz averaged well over 100 for the first nine darts against Yuki Yamada in the first round and although that dropped to 91.32 overall that was only because of a couple of dodgy legs on the doubles. In the main he was very impressive and if Dolan isn’t bang on it I think he’s there for the taking. Although he made the semi-finals in Minehead, he beat Price with an 89.78 average so he might have been flattered a little with that run. Dolan comes into this match cold so odds against on Rydz feels a decent price.
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Mensur Suljovic vs Alan Soutar
The third match of the afternoon sees Mensur Suljovic looking to make progress and put a couple of terrible tournaments behind him. In order to do that he’ll need to take care of Alan Soutar who outlasted Diogo Portela in the first round.
Soutar started the year off in fine fashion and while things went a little quiet in the second part of the year, when he played well against Portela he looked in pretty decent touch. The last two times we have seen Suljovic he lost to Fallon Sherrock at the Grand Slam with a mid-80 average and then got dumped out of the Players Championship Finals by Callan Rydz with a 77.95 average. The last time he got beaten by Sherrock was here a couple of years ago and it took him ages to bounce back from it. There has also been talk of him falling out of love with the sport which is why he hasn’t played all the events this year and that defeat to Sherrock at the Grand Slam already looks to be leaving lasting effects on him. Soutar has to be the bet here particularly as he should naturally improve with a match behind him on this stage.
Jose de Sousa vs Jason Lowe
The final match of the afternoon session sees Jose de Sousa looking to make it into the third round for the second year in succession when he takes on a Jason Lowe who is looking to achieve the same thing after he put Michael Smith out at this stage last year.
De Sousa had a bit of a wobble in the middle of the year when some health issues kicked in but he has slowly looked much nearer his best in the Grand Slam and at the Players Championship Finals and if he is there here then he should have too much. He’ll need to be at his best though because Lowe showed when he dumped Smith out last year that he can play this game and although he has little to no opposition in the first round against Daniel Larsson, he still put in a 90 average with five 180s. He needs to tighten up on his doubles if he is going to come through this match although his 9/29 on the checkouts is skewed by a terrible first set where he was 3/17 on them. The other two sets he was 6/12 and if he doubles to that level here he could give de Sousa a game. I still think the Portuguese star wins this but Lowe has to be respected enough to avoid taking the Special One.
Tips
Back C.Rydz to beat B.Dolan for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with BetVictor
Back him here:
Back A.Soutar to beat M.Suljovic for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back him here:
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