The WDF World Darts Championship begins inside the Lakeside Country Club on Saturday as both the men’s and women’s tournament gets underway with a flurry of matches in this inaugural staging of the competition.
Often these tournaments can be a bit of a slow burner with the TV companies wanting to keep us waiting for the bigger names to come to the party as the week goes on but that certainly isn’t the case on a good looking Saturday schedule.
Afternoon Session
We begin with the biggest name of them all in this tournament as the oldest player in the competition, Martin Adams, starts his quest for a fourth world title when he faces the youngster Jarred Cole with the two knowing each other well from the Live League over the past two seasons. The second match of the day sees John Scott going up against Johnny Haines before the first women’s match of the tournament comes along. That sees Paula Jacklin facing Rhian O’Sullivan for the right to take on Corinne Hammond in the next round.
The second half of the afternoon begins with the men back on the stage when Ben Hazel takes on one of the dark horses in the event in the form of Haupai Puha before the Swedish star Andreas Harrysson faces the Romanian player Laszlo Kadar in what should be another good match in this session. The afternoon is then rounded off with the women back on show as Amanda Harwood meets Marjolein Noijens.
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Evening Session
We have a really good evening session as the first round continues with the Australian qualifier Landon Gardiner meeting Jim McEwan to open the night off. The latter has been going well on the PDC circuit this season so will be a warm favourite. The women are second on the stage in the evening session as Priscilla Steenbergen meets Darlene Van Sleeuwen before Mark Barilli gets another World Championship campaign underway against Rory Hansen to take us into the halfway mark of the session.
Dave Prins is an experienced campaigner and he will get the second part of the evening underway when he takes on the Welsh player Mark Graham before the last of the women’s matches on the opening day takes place. That sees two English players meeting when Suzanne Smith and Jo Clements battle to be the opponent for Kirsty Hutchinson in the second round. The last match of the night might well end up being the best of the day as Paul Hogan takes on Justin Thompson in a clash which probably deserves to be taking place later in the tournament.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like the look of over the course of the two draws on Saturday. I’m largely going to keep my powder dry until we get out of this best of three sets stuff and also we need to assess the form of the protagonists on show but there is one match where I sense the odds are wrong and that comes in the afternoon session where Laszlo Kadar takes on Andreas Harrysson in a match where I’m surprised the Swede is the favourite.
Kadar has already won the Slovak Open this season, beating Mark Graham and Scott Marsh on the way to the title. That is the pick of the form guides for this match so I’m surprised we can get odds against on the Romanian. Harrysson has tasted a World Championship stage before which shouldn’t be underestimated but the pick of his best form is from a year ago but we can’t really judge that because the WDF scene was still getting established and not all the big hitters were involved. I’m happy to take the recent form of Kadar in this one.
Tips
Back L.Kadar to beat A.Harrysson for a 3/10 stake at 2.05 with Coral
Back him here:
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