The European Tour resumes on the darting scene this weekend when 48 players head to Budapest for the Hungarian Darts Trophy, the third to last qualifying competition for the European Championship which is getting ever closer.
Dave Chisnall won this title a year ago in among his dominant spell on the European Tour and Chizzy is back to make a successful defence of his crown but there is a decent field looking to wrestle the trophy from his grasp.
Recent Winners
2023 – Dave Chisnall
2022 – Joe Cullen
2021 – Gerwyn Price
The Format
The format for these tournaments remains the same as before, which means that the qualifiers meet in the first round of the event on the Friday while the last 32 of the tournament is played over two sessions of action on Saturday, with the last 16 on Sunday afternoon and the quarter finals on Sunday night. They are all the best-of-11 legs with the semi-finals also on Sunday evening. They are the best-of-13 and then the final in the same session is the best-of-15 legs. The draw has been pre-determined and is played in a straight knockout format.
Top Half
The draw bracket is in the normal order this weekend which means that the defending champion and number one seed Dave Chisnall is the top dog in the upper half of the bracket. If the weekend goes by the rankings then he will face off against Gerwyn Price in what would be a tasty semi-final but we have the likes of Danny Noppert, Gian van Veen, Chris Dobey, Ryan Searle, Damon Heta and Daryl Gurney as the other seeds who will be out to stop that happening.
This is a quarter with some significant qualifiers in it. It is only a couple of European Tour events ago that Peter Wright was lifting the trophy and he is in this half of the draw, as is Jonny Clayton who looks to return to his best form. Nathan Aspinall returns from injury this weekend and he is in this half as well as is the World Championship semi-finalist Scott Williams and Wessel Nijman. Florian Hempel, Keane Barry and the home player Alberto Bezijan complete the top half of the bracket.
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Bottom Half
Ross Smith is the top seed in the bottom half of the draw. The number two seed will look to take full advantage of his lofty seeding but he is on a collision course with the world champion Luke Humphries in the semi-final if the rankings are followed. The six other seeds in this half of the draw looking to ensure that doesn’t happen are Ricardo Pietreczko, Stephen Bunting, Martin Schindler, Michael van Gerwen, Josh Rock and Rob Cross.
There are no shortage of decent names in this half of the draw with James Wade one of them while the former UK Open champion Andrew Gilding is in here as well. Gabriel Clemens and Raymond van Barneveld are two other players who could do some damage this weekend. Niels Zonneveld and Jim Williams are two more who might well be able to go deep in this competition. The other two players in the draw are Cor Dekker and Martin Lukeman.
Betting
Ross Smith has been trending in the right direction over the last few months. He has made two European Tour finals this season and a semi-final and he has won a Players Championship event as well and made a raft of semi-finals of them so it is no surprise that Smith is now in the top 10 in the world rankings. He needs a big few weeks if he is going to stay there because his European Championship winning money comes off his ranking in just over a month. The positive for him is that by being in the top 10 in the world he is going to have a slightly more favourable draw in big events like the World Grand Prix which is in the horizon.
We know that Smith is a huge 180 hitter and that is generally a requirement in these tournaments. The better you score and potentially easier you win matches the more energy you have left in the business end of this tournament on Sunday. This is a huge few weeks for Smith. Provisionally with the £120,000 off his ranking he drops outside the top 20 in the world rankings so he needs to make as much of that back in the month between now and then. A big run here would certainly help his cause and in what looks to be the weakest quarter of the draw I think he has the potential to go deep this weekend.
Tips
Back R.Smith to win Hungarian Darts Trophy (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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