The second day of action at the Belgian Darts Open sees the last 32 matches taking place with the winners all earning a spot on finals day on Sunday so there should be some very competitive darts being thrown on Saturday.
It is the day where the seeded players enter the competition with each of them facing a qualifier to try and make it through to the play on Sunday. We have two good looking sessions ready to entertain us.
Afternoon Session
We begin with one half of the World Cup winning duo from earlier in the year as Damon Heta is first up onto the stage. He takes on the exciting youngster Rusty-Jake Rodriguez before the German ace Gabriel Clemens hosts Ryan Meikle. They are followed by another German player in the form of Martin Schindler. He meets Karel Sedlacek before we go to the interval with a clash between Ryan Searle and the former youth world champion Bradley Brooks.
Four matches take place after the break and we resume with Jose de Sousa going up against a Ross Smith who has been playing well for a while. Dave Chisnall is the next big name onto the stage and he has a meeting with the former world champion Jelle Klaasen before Dirk van Duijvenbode looks to put his agonising loss in the final of the World Series of Darts Finals last weekend behind him when he meets Mervyn King. The last match of the afternoon sees Nathan Aspinall meeting Jamie Hughes.
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Evening Session
The star names come out to play one by one in the evening session and they begin with Rob Cross who faces the home player Mike de Decker before the former Premier League champion Jonny Clayton goes up against the Irish young star Keane Barry. The third match of the night sees Dimitri Van den Bergh looking to bounce back from a disappointing defeat in the World Series of Darts last week when he meets Andrew Gilding. We then hit the evening interval with a clash between the world champion Peter Wright and Niels Zonneveld.
Joe Cullen is the player who brings us out of the break. He meets the Swedish player Dennis Nilsson who will be looking for more wins to go towards his European Championship hopes. The match of the night comes next when Michael van Gerwen takes on the third home star on stage in the evening in Kim Huybrechts before the action concludes with Adrian Lewis facing Boris Krcmar and Danny Noppert going up against Madars Razma.
Betting
Ross Smith has been playing well for a while now and he looks overpriced at 13/10 to see off a Jose de Sousa, who to be fair has improved over the last couple of months but who is still a bit too inconsistent for my liking. De Sousa reached the semi-final of the last European Tour event a couple of weeks ago so you sense his confidence is coming back but I still don’t really trust him as a warm favourite and I think he might be vulnerable in this match.
Smith had an excellent week at that same European Tour event. He took care of Danny Noppert in the second round with a 98.90 average and then Damon Heta in the last 16 with a 106.66 average before losing to the eventual champion Peter Wright in the quarter final. Smith has three wins in the last four over de Sousa as well and those wins weren’t when he was playing as well as he appears to be doing at the minute. Smith is in good position to make it through to the European Championship so he can play with freedom and take it to the Portuguese star. At this price I think Smith is the bet.
Tips
Back R.Smith to beat J.de Sousa for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with Coral
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