The seeded players come to the party in the International Darts Open on Saturday when the last 32 of the third European Tour event of the season is played out across two good looking sessions of play out in Riesa.
That means we get to see the likes of the world champion Luke Humphries and defending champion Gerwyn Price for the first time this weekend as well as a host of other great names with some home stars mixed in around them.
Afternoon Session
We have a very strong looking afternoon session on show on Saturday and it begins with the former European champion Ross Smith. He meets William O’Connor to get the action started before our outright pick Damon Heta takes to the stage to meet Callan Rydz. The next three games are very tasty ones for this stage of a European Tour event as Ryan Searle goes up against Daryl Gurney before we reach the halfway point of the afternoon with Krzysztof Ratajski meeting Chris Dobey.
We come out of the interval with the current UK Open winner meeting a player who formerly got his hands on that title when Dimitri Van den Bergh faces Danny Noppert before The Masters champion Stephen Bunting opens his account for the weekend against Michael Unterbuchner. Such is the quality on show on Saturday that Jonny Clayton can only take on Nathan Aspinall in the penultimate match of the afternoon before the former world champion Michael Smith closes out the show when he takes on Ritchie Edhouse.
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Evening Session
We have a stacked evening session to enjoy on Saturday and it gets underway with the home player Ricardo Pietreczko looking to cause what would be something of an upset even though he is the seeded man. James Wade is the player he will be looking to get the better of. When they are done the number one seed Dave Chisnall takes to the stage for the first time this weekend. He has a date with Richard Veenstra before Joe Cullen meets another of the home players in Martin Schindler. We hit the halfway point of the evening with Gerwyn Price beginning his title defence when he takes on Brendan Dolan.
Josh Rock is the man who is given the honour of opening up the second part of the evening session. He should be involved in an entertaining match with the more than capable Cameron Menzies before the world champion Luke Humphries starts his quest for successive European Tour titles when he goes up against Jose de Sousa. The two show closers aren’t bad either with Dirk van Duijvenbode facing Gabriel Clemens in the penultimate match of the evening before Rob Cross rounds out the action when he takes on Gian van Veen.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the Saturday play with both coming in the evening. The first one comes in the form of James Wade to see off Ricardo Pietreczko. The German had a good run in the opening European Tour event where he made the semi-final before the infamous fall out with Luke Littler but he had a favourable run in that event with Luke Woodhouse averaging 91.09 against him, Ryan Joyce 89.92 and Jonny Clayton just 80.82 in the quarter final before Littler put him out of his misery. Pietreczko arrives into this match having won just one of his last five matches and takes on a James Wade who played well to beat Mike De Decker on Friday and who is experienced and consistent enough to average what is needed to get the job done here. I think this is a great spot to get on Wade at 10/11.
The other bet I like is for Martin Schindler to take care of Joe Cullen. Schindler has been in decent form for a while now and showed that when he made the semi-final of the last European Tour event having previously disposed of Gerwyn Price before running Luke Littler close at the UK Open. Cullen is the seeded player here but he wouldn’t have been had Michael van Gerwen not withdrawn from the tournament but that means that Schindler has had the chance to have a match on the stage which Cullen hasn’t had. It was a cruise for Schindler too so it wouldn’t have taken much out of him. Schindler will have the crowd behind him and for me should be the marginal favourite here. I’ll play him at even money.
Tips
Back J.Wade to beat R.Pietreczko for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back M.Schindler to beat J.Cullen for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
