The seeded players enter the Baltic Sea Darts Open on Saturday when two sessions of play makes up the second round of the latest European Tour event where we have some good matches to enjoy over the course of the day.
It means we see the likes of Luke Humphries, Michael van Gerwen and the defending champion Dave Chisnall for the first time this week with players all looking to book their spot on the final day of the event on Sunday.
Afternoon Session
The exciting youngster Josh Rock gets us up and running on Saturday afternoon when he takes on one of few home men left in the draw in Franz Roetzsch. A really good game follows that as Dirk van Duijvenbode meets Daryl Gurney before Ryan Searle opens up his campaign when he takes on Jermaine Wattimena. We reach the halfway point of the session with the former European champion Ross Smith meeting Luke Woodhouse.
Another tasty looking match brings us out of the interval when the number two seed Damon Heta faces Gian van Veen for a place in the last 16. Two men who have won a TV tournament meet in the next game when Joe Cullen faces James Wade before Rob Cross is on stage in the penultimate match of the afternoon. Maik Kuivenhoven will be his opponent. Two home players round off the afternoon as Ricardo Pietreczko faces Moritz Hilger.
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Evening Session
We have a lit up evening session to enjoy over the course of Saturday as well and that gets underway with Jonny Clayton opening up his tournament against Ritchie Edhouse. When they are done we have a tasty all-Dutch battle between Danny Noppert and Raymond van Barneveld. Peter Wright then follows them when he takes on the man who won the UK Open last season in Andrew Gilding while the world champion Luke Humphries takes us to the interval when he faces Sebastian Bialecki.
We start the second half of the evening with two Dutch throwers battling it out when Michael van Gerwen gets his tournament started against Wessel Nijman. Krzysztof Ratajski then opens up his campaign when he faces Mike De Decker, who was impressive in beating Martin Schindler in the opening round on Friday. Stephen Bunting is the penultimate seed onto the stage as he faces the reigning WDF world champion Andy Baetens before the number one seed Dave Chisnall begins his title defence against Madars Razma.
Betting
I think James Wade is a little higher in the odds than he should be to beat Joe Cullen on Saturday afternoon. Cullen played in both Players Championship events and lost in the first round of them both with averages of 83.41 and 73.67, the latter being a 6-0 loss to Berry van Peer. He is now averaging less than 90 on the Players Championship circuit this season and given that is behind closed doors averages tend to be inflated there so that shows he isn’t in great nick, even allowing for the fact he made the final of the last European Tour event.
Wade probably is beyond the part of his career where he is really reliable but he averaged just under a ton in a good win over Niels Zonneveld on Friday and he is averaging more than Cullen on the pro tour this term so it is a little baffling how Wade is odds against here. Cullen did show in that last European Tour event that he can do it on his day but that event really does stand out in his form. If Wade plays like he did on Friday, or even close to it, then I think he’ll come through here.
Tips
Back J.Wade to beat J.Cullen for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with Unibet
