Another season of the European Tour begins this weekend as 48 of the leading players in the world showcase their stuff when the first qualifying event for the European Championship takes place out in Wize as the Belgian Darts Open is played.
Luke Littler landed his first European Tour title here a year ago and the recently crowned UK Open winner and world champion is in the field looking to make a successful defence of the title. Changes to the system means a top field is out to deny him.
Recent Winners
2024 – Luke Littler
2023 – Michael van Gerwen
2022 – Dave Chisnall
The Format
We have a slightly new format this weekend which means that the players ranked 17-32 on the order of merit and 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
The seeds are done this week based on the world rankings which means that Luke Humphries is the number one seed and sits at the top of the draw bracket. He is scheduled to meet his fellow Premier League challenger Rob Cross in what would be a tasty semi-final but six other seeded players will be out to deny that from happening. They include Dimitri Van den Bergh, Damon Heta, Gerwyn Price, Peter Wright, Stephen Bunting and Danny Noppert so half of the Premier League field are in this half.
In terms of the players who enter the draw in the first round in this half Michael Smith is probably the biggest name among them but the likes of Gian van Veen and Mike De Decker are more than capable of taking this title down. Ross Smith has a pretty good record in Europe while Cameron Menzies, Martin Schindler, Jermaine Wattimena and Daryl Gurney complete the list of players ranked 17-32. Qualifiers include Ryan Joyce, James Hurrell, Matt Campbell and Thibault Tricole.
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Bottom Half
The defending champion Luke Littler will look to make a successful defence of the title from the bottom half of the draw. He is the highest seed in it and he is scheduled to go up against Michael van Gerwen in what would be a repeat of the world final in the semi-final. Six seeds are out to put a dent in that happening too. They are Dave Chisnall, Gary Anderson, Nathan Aspinall, Jonny Clayton, Chris Dobey and the UK Open finalist James Wade.
The players who are ranked 17-32 in this half of the draw and enter in the first round include Josh Rock, Wessel Nijman, Dirk van Duijvenbode and Ritchie Edhouse, the man who will be looking to defend his European Championship crown this season. Raymond van Barneveld, Ricardo Pietreczko, Luke Woodhouse and Ryan Searle are the others while qualifiers in this half include Owen Bates, Boris Krcmar, Darius Labanauskas and Francois Schweyen, who had a good WDF World Championship at the back end of last year.
Betting
I’ll take a player in each half of the draw this weekend because with this being the first Euro event of the year and it coming after the Premier League players have played a lot of darts in the last week or so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the draw opens up. In the top half the player I like is Gian van Veen. He made a Euro Tour final last year in the Hungarian Darts Trophy so the next step is to win one. He had a good UK Open campaign last weekend where he made the quarter final before losing 10-4 to Luke Little with a 99.82 average. He averaged 109.90 the round before though beating Damon Heta 10-9 and that is top class darts whoever you are. The Dutchman has also beaten Wessel Nijman, Mike De Decker and Stephen Bunting this year and so the 33/1 on him to deliver the goods here looks big.
In the bottom half of the draw I like a man who went a round further than van Veen in Minehead last week in the form of Josh Rock. Rock got the better of Nathan Aspinall in the quarter final there having beaten Ross Smith and Rob Cross in the two previous rounds with his averages touching 100 and being over it against Smith. Rock won the Dutch Darts Trophy last season so we know he can go all the way in a European Tour event and this season he has already reached a quarter final on the floor. He looks like he is in excellent touch at the minute and if he can get the better of van Gerwen in a possible second round match there isn’t much to stop him reaching the last four at least. I’ll pay to see if he can get there and beyond.
Tips
Back G.van Veen to win Belgian Darts Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back J.Rock to win Belgian Darts Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Boylesports (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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