The European Tour continues onto the fifth event of the season this weekend when the Austrian Darts Open takes place out in Graz as the qualifying competition for the European Championship carries on at a pace.
Jonny Clayton is the defending champion this week and he’ll be delighted that a number of the big names are taking the weekend off with the Premier League reaching a crucial stage so his title might not be quite as hard to defend as it could have been.
Recent Winners
2024 – Jonny Clayton
2023 – Jonny Clayton
2022 – Michael van Gerwen
2019 – Michael van Gerwen
2018 – Jonny Clayton
2017 – Michael van Gerwen
2016 – Phil Taylor
2014 – Vincent van der Voort
2013 – Michael van Gerwen
2012 – Justin Pipe
The Format
We have a slightly new format this season which means that the players ranked 17-32 on the order of merit and the qualifiers meet each other over the course of the play on Friday before 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
There have been so many high profile withdrawals or non-entries this weekend that Jonny Clayton is actually the number one seed as he bids for a hat trick of title wins. The top seed is in the top half of the draw so that is where the Welshman sits. He will be on a collision course with Nathan Aspinall in the last four but a bunch of seeds will be out to stop that from happening. They are Daryl Gurney, Danny Noppert, Josh Rock, Martin Schindler, Chris Dobey and the World Grand Prix champion Mike De Decker.
Wessel Nijman will be the leading light of those outside the top 16 who had already qualified but the likes of Ricardo Pietreczko, Kevin Doets and Krzysztof Ratajski are all competent challengers who could go well without the big names. Jermaine Wattimena and Ritchie Edhouse competed in the European Championship final last season and they are both in this half of the draw while the actual qualifiers in this section include the home trio of Mensur Suljovic, Rowby-John Rodriguez and Zoran Lerchbacher while Niko Springer and William O’Connor are dangers too.
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Bottom Half
Given all of the absentees this weekend, Stephen Bunting has dropped into the second seed spot and he is the highest seed in the bottom half of the draw in this. He is seeded to face off against Damon Heta in the semi-final with the other seeds who will be out to stop that match from happening being the man who reached the final of the last European Tour event last week in Gian van Veen, Peter Wright, Ross Smith, Joe Cullen, Dave Chisnall and Ryan Searle.
Dirk van Duijvenbode is among the players outside the seeds who automatically qualified for the main draw. Others to note in that bracket include Luke Woodhouse, the former UK Open champion Andrew Gilding and Ryan Joyce who has capable of going under the radar. Most of the attention in the tournament in this half of the draw in the early stages will be on Raymond van Barneveld. Chris Landman, Karel Sedlacek and Ian White are among the pick of the qualifiers.
Betting
I was quite excited about finding some value when I saw all the big names who weren’t featuring this week but the bottom has completely fallen out of the market which isn’t exactly ideal. On the best prices, 10 players are 20/1 or shorter in the betting but to be honest I don’t really see the winner coming from outside of there, or if it does then not too much deeper into the market. The question is who we take because I don’t think we’re going to find much in the way of standout value.
I quite like Ross Smith this week. Admittedly he is in a tricky quarter with Gian van Veen and Stephen Bunting but they are on course to collide in the last 16 so only one of them will be left in the tournament on Sunday evening and van Veen won’t have been favourite for too many tournaments and surely Bunting will be focused on finishing the Premier League well. Smith was a quarter finalist last weekend and made the semi-final of the opening European Tour event of the season. He is more than good enough to do some damage this weekend.
Tips
Back R.Smith to win Austrian Darts Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 17.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)
