The new European Tour campaign gets underway on Friday when 48 players head to Wieze for the Belgian Darts Open, a tournament which acts as the opening event towards the qualification for the European Championship later in the year.
Michael van Gerwen won this tournament last year and he is back in the field looking to make a successful defence of his title but the structure has changed this season so the talent opposing him looks a lot stronger.
Recent Winners
2023 – Michael van Gerwen
2022 – Dave Chisnall
The Format
We have the normal format this weekend which means that the qualifiers meet each other over the course of the play on Friday before the last 32 of the tournament is played over two sessions of action on Saturday, with the last 16 on Sunday afternoon and the quarter finals on Sunday night. They are all the best-of-11 legs with the semi-finals also on Sunday evening. They are the best-of-13 and then the final in the same session is the best-of-15 legs. The draw has been pre-determined and is played in a straight knockout format.
Top Half
We are using the European Tour standings from last season to determine the seeded players this weekend which means that Dave Chisnall is the top seed and placed at the top of the draw for this event. He is slated to meet Damon Heta in the semi-final if everything goes to the seeding. The other six seeds in the top half looking to make sure that doesn’t happen are Michael van Gerwen, Ricardo Pietreczko, Jonny Clayton, Krzysztof Ratajski, Dirk van Duijvenbode and Ross Smith.
The changes to the format this season with the top 16 players on the pro tour getting into this event has meant that the unseeded players look a lot stronger and it is obviously Luke Littler who catches the eye in this half, although Peter Wright isn’t a million miles behind him. Joe Cullen is another player who is usually seeded for these events with others who catch the eye being Joe Cullen, the former UK Open winner Andrew Gilding, Ryan Joyce and Luke Woodhouse.
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Bottom Half
Luke Humphries is the world champion and the best player in the world but he is only the second seed in the tournament this week. Should it all go to the numbers then Humphries would meet his fellow Premier League player Gerwyn Price in the semi-final but so many more good players are seeded in this half of the draw and will be out to stop them. Ryan Searle has already won on the floor this season and he is in this half of the draw as is another winner on the floor in Gary Anderson. Rob Cross, Danny Noppert, Josh Rock and Michael Smith complete the seeded players in this part of the draw.
The latest two TV tournament winners are among the unseeded players in the bottom half this weekend with Stephen Bunting and Dimitri Van den Bergh both here. Two superstars of the game are in this section as well in James Wade and Raymond van Barneveld while Chris Dobey was a Premier League player last season. Nathan Aspinall is one this season and both are in the bottom half while the exciting Gian van Veen and Mike De Decker are a couple of youngsters to look out for.
Betting
With the standard of the field in these European Tour events having changed, we are going to find it hard to find value over the coming events and in a way that is the case here. One thing which might help is the Premier League players might be more concerned about their position in that competition rather than this one. One of that elite eight who can’t be thinking that way though is Peter Wright and at 28/1 I think he is decent value to come through the draw.
Wright made the semi-final of the latest Players Championship tournament and only lost out in a deciding leg to Stephen Bunting in the last 16 of the UK Open. Had he won that who knows what might have happened. His Premier League campaign is a write off already but he hasn’t played as bad as the results have suggested in recent weeks and in two of his last three matches in that competition he has missed darts at a double to win. He is in the weakest quarter of the draw here with the seeds he could run into being an injured Michael van Gerwen, a bang out of form Jonny Clayton and one of Dave Chisnall or Ricardo Pietreczko who would be an outsider against Wright. This looks a great chance for Wright to boost his confidence and land a European Tour title for the second campaign in succession.
Tips
Back P.Wright to win Belgian Darts Open (e/w) for a 3/10 stake at 29.00 with BetVictor (1/2 1-2)
