The Austrian Darts Open begins on Friday with the 32 qualifiers battling it out over two sessions of play with the reward for the 16 men who win their match being a meeting with a seeded player on Saturday.
We have to wait until Saturday for the likes of Michael van Gerwen, Michael Smith and Peter Wright to come to the party but there are a number of recognisable names on show throughout the two sessions on Friday.
Afternoon Session
We begin the day with a competitive looking match between the Welsh player Nick Kenny and the Latvian number one Madars Razma before Mickey Mansell goes up against another player from Latvia in the form of Dmitrijs Zukovs. The third match of the afternoon will see the in form Krzysztof Ratajski taking to the stage looking for a decent start to his weekend. He meets Owen Roelofs before we head to the halfway mark of the session with Cameron Menzies facing Ricardo Pietreczko.
The second part of the afternoon begins with one of the home players in action when Marcus Haider takes on Luke Woodhouse before Maik Kuivenhoven goes up against the former world youth champion Bradley Brooks. Jeffrey de Zwaan looked like he was coming back to form last month but has hit the skids recently. He’ll be looking to come good when he takes on Hannes Schnier before the afternoon comcludes with the popular John Henderson taking on Dylan Slevin.
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Evening Session
We have a competitive looking evening session on show on Friday and that gets underway with the Canadian ace Matt Campbell taking on Ian White before William O’Connor will look to make it through against a Jelle Klaasen who doesn’t have a tour card anymore making this a big weekend for him. One of the ties of the opening round sees Kim Huybrechts going up against Simon Whitlock in the third match of the evening before Brendan Dolan and Raymond van Barneveld takes us to the halfway mark of the session.
The second part of the evening should be full of fun and good darts and it begins with Ryan Meikle and Rowby-John Rodriguez going at it. The tie of the round comes in the third to last match of the evening when Daryl Gurney faces Stephen Bunting. The Premier League star Chris Dobey takes to the stage in the penultimate game of the evening. He has a meeting with Vitezslav Sedlak before the home favourite Mensur Suljovic takes on Ricky Evans to close out the opening day.
Betting
Ian White is coming back into a nice vein of form and I think he’ll have too much for a Matt Campbell who is capable on his day but can sometimes lack a gear in the scoring department which can often make him vulnerable. White comes here off the back of a run to the semi-final of the Players Championship event last weekend where he had Damon Heta and James Wade among his victims which is a further suggestion that he is coming back to life after an indifferent period. White has been relentless in qualifying for the European Tour events this season but hasn’t quite got the results he would have wanted when at them. I think he’ll make up for that against a Campbell who only has three wins in his last 10 matches.
I’ve mentioned a few times when doing these previews that there is a good side to Ryan Meikle and a bad side and the difference between the two is so big that I am often looking to take him on in a favourable situation and I think we have that on Friday evening when he meets Rowby-John Rodriguez, who will have the crowd behind him and who loves the stage. In fact, he is better on the stage than the floor so his recent form, which isn’t fantastic, is largely not an issue. Meikle has lost his last four matches in all tournaments and a couple of those losses were by scores you wouldn’t expect to opponents you would expect him to beat. With the crowd against him and Rodriguez wanting to entertain I think this could be a tough night for ‘The Barber’.
Tips
Back I.White to beat M.Campbell for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
Back R-J.Rodriguez to beat R.Meikle for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with William Hill
Back him here:
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