The opening day of the Belgian Darts Open sees the tournament getting underway on Friday when the players ranked 17-32 in the world look to make it through to a clash with a top 16 player when they meet a qualifier in Wieze.
You get the feeling that there is pressure on the ranked players here so it will be interesting to see how many feel that and how many are able to take advantage of the fact that they are more established than their opponents.
Afternoon Session
Luke Woodhouse has the honour of opening up the tournament on Friday afternoon. He will look to avoid an upset when he faces the home qualifier Cedric Waegemans before Cameron Menzies will look to take a step towards a European Tour breakthrough when he faces Matt Campbell in one of the better looking matches in the afternoon. Gian van Veen will bid to build on his solid run in the UK Open in the third match of the session when he takes on James Hurrell before we reach the halfway point with the European champion Ritchie Edhouse going up against Owen Bates.
The second half of the afternoon looks pretty tasty too with Ricardo Pietreczko getting it up and running when he faces Matthew Dennant. Wessel Nijman has the talent to go far this weekend and he’ll look to get the better of the home player Francois Schweyen in the first round before Daryl Gurney will take to the stage for the penultimate match of the afternoon. He meets the French ace Thibault Tricole. Dirk van Duijvenbode rounds off the session when he faces Darius Labanauskas.
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Evening Session
A very tasty evening session starts with the former European champion Ross Smith taking to the stage when he faces a home qualifier in the form of Sybren Gijbels before Ryan Searle will look to put that whitewash in the UK Open last week behind him when he plays a potentially dangerous Daryl Pilgrim. Jermaine Wattimena has been one of the best players on the circuit in the last six months and he’ll look to showcase that once again when he faces Patrick De Backer before Josh Rock takes us to the halfway mark when he plays the big Croatian player Boris Krcmar.
The pick of the evening matches gets us started in the second part of the latter session when the former world champion Michael Smith looks to build on his run to the last eight of the UK Open when he takes on Ryan Joyce before Raymond van Barneveld graces a European Tour stage once again when he plays the up and coming Cam Crabtree. The World Grand Prix champion Mike De Decker will look to thrill the home crowds in the penultimate match of the evening when he faces Thomas Lovely before we conclude the day with Martin Schindler taking on Jim Long.
Betting
There isn’t a massive amount that I like over the course of the opening day with the ranked players likely to show their class over the course of the day but most of them are favourites and solid ones at that. One which might not be though is Raymond van Barneveld, a man who played two matches at the UK Open last weekend and averaged 86.51 and 83.05 and that raises red flag concerns. I think Barney has to be taken on here.
Cam Crabtree has been well backed for this match and it isn’t hard to see why. He played three matches at the UK Open last week, averaging 99.94 in thrashing Wesley Plaisier 6-1, 93.92 in walloping Andy Baetens 6-1 before losing 6-4 to Radek Szaganski with a 92.29 average. Crabtree has already averaged over 95 three times in his seven matches in the Players Championship events this season where it has taken Dimitri Van den Bergh, Jonny Clayton, Wessel Nijman and Rob Cross to beat him and he took Nijman the distance. All four have averaged a ton against him. There isn’t even much in the Barneveld floor form to inspire us so Crabtree looks a solid play on the opening day here.
Tips
Back C.Crabtree to beat R.Barneveld for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Unibet
