The second day of action at the Belgian Darts Open sees the last 32 of the draw being played out across two sessions of play on a day where the seeded players enter the tournament on what should be a quality day of darts on Saturday.
That all means that we get to see the likes of the world champion Luke Humphries and the defending champion Michael van Gerwen for the first time on the week not to mention the likes of Luke Littler and Stephen Bunting once again.
Afternoon Session
We open the action with the winner of the last European Tour event of last season in Ricardo Pietreczko. He goes up against Luke Woodhouse before the former European champion Ross Smith takes on Jermaine Wattimena. Jonny Clayton will look to lift his form in the third match of the afternoon when he takes on Berry van Peer before we reach the halfway point of the session with a clash between Damon Heta and Brendan Dolan.
Ryan Searle was surprisingly beaten in his opening match at the UK Open last week but had been in great form prior to that and he’ll look to get back to that when he takes on Richard Veenstra before Danny Noppert and Chris Dobey do battle for a spot in the last 16. Gary Anderson arrived in Belgium as a fancied runner and he begins his campaign in the penultimate match of the afternoon when he faces Andreas Harrysson before the session concludes with Dirk van Duijvenbode goes up against Joe Cullen.
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Evening Session
We begin the evening session with the number one seed Dave Chisnall on show. He faces a tricky assignment against Ryan Joyce before Michael Smith launches his campaign against the home player Mike De Decker. Gerwyn Price is the third seed on show in the evening session when he takes on Gabriel Clemens in a repeat of that controversial World Championship match of last year which saw Price end up wearing ear defenders on stage! The tie of the round sends us into the break as Michael van Gerwen meets Peter Wright.
We come out of the interval with the current superstar of darts Luke Littler looking to make it into the final day of the tournament. He will go up against Krzysztof Ratajski, who might have drawn a short straw. The next two matches should be full of quality as Luke Humphries goes up against James Wade before Stephen Bunting looks to continue his good start to 2024 when he meets Josh Rock. Rob Cross has the honour of closing the show when he takes on Lukas Wenig.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like over the course of Saturday but I do think that with the benefit of a win on Friday coupled with a morale boosting couple of wins over Raymond van Barneveld and Michael Smith at the UK Open, that Luke Woodhouse could be one to be on when he opens the show against Ricardo Pietreczko. I didn’t think Pietreczko looked much cop at the UK Open and it might just be that the German is slightly overrated on the back of that win on the European Tour last season.
He only averaged 92.93 in that final which was the lowest winning average in a final on the European Tour all season. This is his first match of this event and I always think that is a negative for the seeded player. Woodhouse averaged 97.45 over 19 legs in beating Smith in Minehead last week and 94.15 here on Friday where he hit six of his nine shots at a double. Those are solid performances and if he plays like that again, and he is generally very consistent so I see no reason why he won’t, then I think the even money on him winning looks a big price.
Tips
Back L.Woodhouse to beat R.Pietreczko for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
