The opening day of the Belgian Darts Open takes place in Wieze on Friday as the unseeded players battle it out over two sessions of play with the aim of winning a match and setting up a clash with a seeded player on Saturday.
We have to wait until Saturday for the likes of Luke Humphries, Gerwyn Price, Michael van Gerwen and Michael Smith to enter the competition but we do have players like Peter Wright, Luke Littler and Dimitri Ven den Bergh on show on Friday to entertain us.
Afternoon Session
We begin with two players from the continent battling it out for the right to meet Jonny Clayton when Berry van Peer takes on Daniel Klose. When they are done two seasoned campaigners will take to the stage as Ryan Joyce meets Andrew Gilding before two more European players head to the stage as Lukas Wenig faces Born Van Put. We head to the midway part of the afternoon with the former TV tournament winner Daryl Gurney going up against Jermaine Wattimena.
The second half of the afternoon sees Luke Woodhouse going up against the former England captain James Hurrell, who makes his European Tour debut here. Brendan Dolan is a leading name in the afternoon session and he’ll face Steven Strobbe before Chris Dobey begins his European Tour campaign against Romeo Grbavac. The last match in the afternoon sees the exciting Development Tour star Gian van Veen going up against the Swedish player Andreas Harrysson.
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Evening Session
We have an extremely good evening session to look forward to for the opening day of a European Tour event and one of the home stars in the event opens up the show when Mike De Decker meets the WDF World Championship finalist Chris Landman. When they are done Martin Schindler takes to the stage for a clash against Joe Cullen before his German compatriot Gabriel Clemens faces Jeroen Caron. We reach the halfway point of the evening with the impressive Luke Littler making his European Tour debut when he faces Jose de Sousa.
Peter Wright isn’t having the best of times of it in the Premier League but he is in this tournament and has a first round clash with home player Geert de Vos. The two standout clashes on the opening day follow them onto the stage. The first of them sees James Wade facing Raymond van Barneveld with the winner meeting Luke Humphries in a tough part of the draw. The second sees the newly crowned UK Open champion Dimitri Van den Bergh taking on The Masters winner Stephen Bunting with Josh Rock waiting for the winner. The last game of a really entertaining looking evening pits Nathan Aspinall up against Richard Veenstra.
Betting
I really liked what I saw of Martin Schindler at the UK Open at the weekend. He took care of Gerwyn Price before he went down in a close match against Luke Littler where he averaged 98 and change in defeat and if he can play like that on Friday evening then I see no reason why he can’t get the better of a Joe Cullen whose 2024 hasn’t really got going just yet. Cullen was beaten by Michael Smith in his first match at the UK Open and while that was a dog of a draw it wasn’t vintage Smith that he lost to.
Cullen arrives in Belgium having only won two of his six matches in all competitions. Whether that agonising loss to Luke Humphries at the World Championship has had a lasting effect on him only he will know but either way he doesn’t look the player which won The Masters a couple of years ago and made the Premier League final. Schindler has been improving for a while and looks to have kicked on again this season and based on the form we have seen recently I think the German should be a clearer favourite than the 10/11 he has been chalked up at.
Tips
Back M.Schindler to beat J.Cullen for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
