The anticipation in the darting world is beginning to turn towards the PDC World Championship at Alexandra Palace next month but before we get there we have the WDF World Darts Championship to enjoy at the Lakeside, with the event getting underway on Friday evening.
Andy Baetens won this tournament last year but then went to Q-School and got a PDC Tour Card so he isn’t in the field to attempt to defend the crown so we are guaranteed a different winner of the historic event.
Recent Winners
2023 – Andy Baetens
2022 – Neil Duff
The Format
48 men have made it into the draw. 16 seeded bypass the first round with the other 32 players playing a best of three set match to take on one of the seeds in round two. The second round and the last 16 will be played over the best of five sets with the quarter finals the best of seven sets. The semi-finals are the best of nine sets and the champion will be determined on the second Sunday over the best of 11 sets. The draw has been pre-determined with a few adjustments after players who qualified for the PDC tournament were removed and every dart will be shown live on the GREAT! game YouTube channel.
Top Half
As you would expect, the top seed is at the top of the draw bracket. That is the Australian player Danny Porter. He is seeded to meet another Australian in the semi-final in this half of the draw with Brandon Weening being the next highest seed in it. There are six other seeds who will be looking to make progress and stop that from happening. They are Martin Turner, Benjamin Pratnemer, Thomas Junghans, Edwin Torbjornsson, Peter Machin and Cliff Prior.
There are also 16 qualifiers in this half of the draw who will come into the event in the opening round and one of those is the man who was the number one seed last year in Brian Raman. Carl Wilkinson had a tour card back in the day and he is in this half as well while Mark Barilli is something of a Lakeside veteran. Ky Smith, Scott Walter, Mike Gillet, Jordan Brooks and Bradley Kirk who are others who could be dangerous.
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Bottom Half
The tournament favourite Jimmy van Schie is the highest seed in the bottom half of the draw. Many believe he is going to take some beating this week and it will be interesting to see if the Dutch player lives up to that expectation. He is seeded to meet the 2022 champion Neil Duff in what would be a tasty semi-final but six other seeds won’t be looking at that as a match that can happen. They are Jason Brandon, Liam Maendl-Lawrance, Barry Copeland, Gary Stone, Kai Fan Leung and Ryan Hogarth.
There are another 16 qualifiers in the bottom half of the draw too which will all be looking to make a name for themselves this week. The highest profile of them is the man who once hit a nine-dart finish on this stage in the Singapore legend Paul Lim. Matthew Edgar is quite a public figure in the game at the minute and he’s in this half while the likes of Dennis Nilsson, Morano Blom, Patrik Kovacs and Laszlo Kadar are all overseas players who could have a good run.
Betting
Jimmy van Schie is going to take a lot of beating this week but 4/1 favourites aren’t really for me in this sort of tournament so I’ll take two at decent value against him over the course of the week. The first of those is his compatriot Jarno Bottenberg, who could be something of a forgotten man in the draw. The Dutchman won his home open earlier in the year and that is one of the hardest tournaments to win at the best of times let alone when you need to beat Wesley Plaisier in the final like he did. The fact he could beat an opponent of that calibre should bode well for him here. Bottenberg had a crack at this tournament last year where he averaged 91.72 in beating Jamie Lewis in the first round before Danny Lauby got him in the second round. He has a tough draw but this tournament always opens up for someone and I’ll pay to see if that is him.
At a much bigger price I can’t ignore Carl Wilkinson, the Isle of Man Open winner from earlier in the year. Wilkinson is ranked 11 on the WDF rankings at the minute and while they aren’t completely set in stone as a form guide because not everyone plays all of the events, it shows he is doing something right. Of the 10 players who are ahead of him in those rankings, five of them aren’t here so technically Wilkinson is ranked the sixth best player in the field, isn’t in the same half of the draw as van Schie and yet he is 150/1. Back in the day Wilkinson had a tour card so he is a solid level campaigner who averaged 94.89 when winning the British Open final earlier in the year. That is a level that will go very deep in this tournament but generally he is in the high 80s for averages which will also be competitive. At the price I can’t not get involved in him.
Tips
Back J.Bottenberg to win WDF World Darts Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Bet365 (1/2 1-2)
Back C.Wilkinson to win WDF World Darts Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 151.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
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