The opening day of darts at the Baltic Sea Darts Open sees the unseeded players battling it out in Kiel over two sessions of play with everyone involved having the ambition of winning their match and setting up a clash with a seed on Saturday.
We have to wait until Saturday for the likes of the defending champion Dave Chisnall and the world champion Luke Humphries to come out to play but there are still some household names on show to entertain us throughout Friday.
Afternoon Session
We begin the day with a good looking match as the young Polish star Sebastian Bialecki goes up against the former Grand Slam winner Jose de Sousa for a place in the second round. When they are done Maik Kuivenhoven goes up against a home player in Christopher Toonders who is new to this level. The former WDF World Championship finalist Thibault Tricole is next onto the stage to take on Andrew Gilding before we reach the halfway point of the afternoon with a clash between Haupai Puha and Franz Roetzsch.
The second half of the afternoon session begins with another home player on the stage as Moritz Hilger makes his European Tour debut when he goes up against the out of form Matthew Dennant. Brendan Dolan arrives here off the back of a Players Championship win earlier in the week and he’ll be looking to follow that up when he takes on Jermaine Wattimena before Luke Woodhouse faces Ryan Joyce in the penultimate game of the afternoon. The session concludes with James Wade meeting Niels Zonneveld.
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Evening Session
We resume the action on Friday with the former winner of The Masters, Chris Dobey, on show. He faces the Latvian number one Madars Razma before the exciting youngster Gian van Veen takes on Kevin Troppmann. One of the ties of the round comes along in the third match of the evening when Daryl Gurney faces the current UK Open champion Dimitri Van den Bergh before we get to the halfway mark as Raymond van Barneveld takes on the Swedish player Daniel Larsson.
The second part of the evening begins with the home star Gabriel Clemens looking to make it through to the Saturday action. He meets the reigning WDF world champion Andy Baetens before Nathan Aspinall gets his campaign underway with a clash against Ritchie Edhouse. The penultimate match of the night sees the German number one Martin Schindler facing the Belgian ace Mike De Decker before we conclude with two of the most exciting youngsters in the game colliding when Luke Littler meets Wessel Nijman.
Betting
I’ll go with one bet over the course of the day on Friday and that comes pretty late in the piece as the home star Martin Schindler meets Mike De Decker and I think the German will win with a bit in hand. Schindler has been posting some insane averages on the European Tour in recent times, particularly the event which he won earlier in the season and in front of a home crowd I expect him to be inspired to go well again this weekend.
Mike De Decker sits at 10 in the averages on the Players Championship circuit this season but he has won just five of his last 14 matches in that sphere and he has lost his last four European Tour outings so while he is scoring good, hitting the clutch doubles has been a problem. That isn’t the case for Schindler, whose finishing has come on leaps and bounds over the course of the last six months or so. Whether Schindler takes advantage of a De Decker miss in a clutch situation or just blows him away like he Gerwyn Price, Chris Dobey, Joe Cullen and others on his way to that European Tour success, I think he’ll cover the 1.5 leg handicap here.
Tips
Back M.Schindler (-1.5 legs) to beat M.De Decker for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
