The last 32 of the European Darts Trophy will be played out over two sessions of play in Hamburg on Saturday with the seeded players coming into the tournament for the first time.
Usually the qualifiers have a bit of an advantage in this round but with all the seeds having played in Gibraltar last weekend and being completely honest the standard of Friday’s matches being so poor I’m not sure that advantage exists here.
Afternoon session
Of the two sessions the afternoon looks a little more competitive with the qualifiers coming through at least on paper being of a better quality than those playing in the evening.
Qualifiers such as Alan Norris, Daryl Gurney, Chris Dobey, John Henderson and even Max Hopp with the crowd behind him can all make big impressions on any event on their day let alone one like this so we might get a few surprises in the afternoon.
Norris takes on van de Pas which should be a great game in this session while Simon Whitlock vs Jamie Caven should be another. Caven was the best player on show on Friday and if he has that form with him he might not be done in this tournament yet. Norris wasn’t his power scoring, aggressive self on Friday which puts me off him.
There isn’t much I like here in truth. The prices are about right in the matches where Terry Jenkins, Jelle Klaasen, Mensur Suljovic, Ian White and Robert Thornton are the seeds but I’m not sure they are the right way around in the other match.
That match sees Mervyn King taking on Daryl Gurney. I accept Gurney is a man on the up and I noticed that and profited from it from a long way out but there a few signs he is stuttering at the minute. He isn’t scoring quite as many 180s as he has done in the past and his averages are dipping.
You have to go back to March for the last time Gurney went beyond the last 16 so his form is clearly in the middle of a dip. That isn’t the case with Mervyn King. Although he only made it to the last 16 last week he ran into Michael van Gerwen and troubled him with an average over a ton but nobody was beating the Green Machine that weekend.
That was encouraging though and if King can have that form with him this week then this is a match he can win. I’m surprised he is odds against for this game but I’ll happily take it.
Evening session
All the really big guns come out to play in this session as Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson, Adrian Lewis, James Wade, Dave Chisnall, Michael Smith, Peter Wright and Kim Huybrechts are all in action.
With the exception of Huybrechts, who has a banana skin against Vincent van der Voort the rest of the big names all have pretty low level qualifiers who if Friday’s round was anything to go by aren’t going to put up much of a resistance.
Normally I’d have chanced VVDV against Huybrechts but Kim did make the semi-final last weekend and could be coming into some form so I’ll leave that alone, as I will the rest of the session because this isn’t really a tournament and certainly not the right round to be attacking handicaps with many involved in the evening having been in Holland for the Premier League on Thursday night.
Tips
Back M.King to beat D.Gurney for a 4/10 stake at 2.05 with NetBet
Back him here:
