The second round of the BDO World Darts Championship concludes on Thursday when the final three last 16 matches are played at the Lakeside Country Club at Frimley Green.
There are two sessions of play on what is day six of the competition with one men’s match in the afternoon and then two more in the evening session and we have two world champions in action along the way too.
The first match of the day in the men’s draw sees the defending champion Scott Mitchell in action. He takes on his fellow England international Mark McGeeney in what looks a high quality clash.
Mitchell is a worthy favourite being the defending champion and he came through a really impressive match against Craig Caldwell in the first round and the fact he was given a scare and responded positively will do him the world of good.
McGeeney was on easy street in the first round when he took on the way out of his depth Peter Sajwani and despite the Swede’s antics the Stockport man was never in any danger and he played much better than his average suggested.
I think this will be a really tight match for long periods and I wouldn’t be surprised if McGeeney can take it the distance but the bet I really like comes in the form of Mitchell’s 180s which is staggering set at a 3.5 line.
He covered that in the first round with four 180s and I’m expecting his scoring to go from strength to strength now he is in the longer formats of the tournament. Mitchell might not be as relentless with 180s as some but he’s capable of filling the 60 up and that line is just too low.
Moving into the evening and I can’t get a feel for the Richard Veenstra vs Martin Atkins match. If Veenstra repeats his form of his win over Jeffrey de Graaf in the first round then I’m pretty certain he will win but I’m less certain he will repeat it.
This is his first time over this distance under this pressure and that can have an impact as we saw with Jim Williams on Wednesday. Atkins might not be anything special but he has plenty of experience which could be crucial at certain points in this match. If I had to I’d go with Veenstra but there’s enough question marks ahead of this one.
The final match of the night should be a really good watch as Scott Waites looks to back up his brilliant performance of the first round against the classy and dangerous Belgian player Geert de Vos.
Waites knows how to go all the way on this stage but even he might struggle to be as good as he was in the first round again here although I’m not in any way suggesting he will play poorly.
That will give de Vos some encouragement and he should keep this one close as a result and if it is close then we’re going to see an inordinate amount of 180s and as a result the 9.5 line looks a touch on the low side.
Waites is a solid hitter of 180s and de Vos is relentless with them when he gets going so two good players playing a good game with a nice rhythm should deliver plenty of maximums here.
The entire quarter final draw in the women’s event will be played throughout the day on Thursday too. Zoe Jones against Ann Louise Peters looks the best match in terms of betting opportunities and I’m tempted to back the Dane but not quite enough.
Lisa Ashton and Aileen de Graaf should both come through 2-0 and at the time of writing we’ve no odds for the Deta Hedman against Lorraine Winstanley match. Winstanley was sensational against Rachel Brooks on Wednesday and a repeat of that is easily good enough here but I suspect she won’t repeat that so it is no harm that there are no odds.
Back S.Mitchell Over 3.5 180s for a 5/10 stake at 1.73 with Bet365
Back S.Waites vs G.de Vos – Over 9.5 180s for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Paddy Power
Blog darts YTD: +22.18pts
