The European Tour season continues this weekend when the tour heads to Prague for the Czech Darts Open with the players in the field looking for wins which will set them up for the remainder of the campaign.
Luke Humphries got the wins he wanted a year ago when he took this title down and he is back in the field looking to make a successful defence of the trophy but the European Tour events have the best fields in the sport right now and he’ll need to play well to keep the crown.
Recent Winners
2024 – Luke Humphries
2023 – Peter Wright
2022 – Luke Humphries
2019 – Jamie Hughes
The Format
We have a slightly new format this season 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
We are back to usual with the draw this week in that the number one seed is in the top half of it. That player is the world number one and defending champion Luke Humphries. The Premier League champion is scheduled to face off against Stephen Bunting in the semi-final should the top half go with the rankings but six seeds will be out to make sure that doesn’t happen. They are the German number one Martin Schindler, former world champion Rob Cross, Damon Heta, another previous champion of the world in Peter Wright, the World Matchplay finalist James Wade and Ross Smith.
We now know that the unseeded players in each half of these things include eight players ranked just outside the top 16 and in this half the three that stand out for different reasons are Nathan Aspinall, who is much better than his ranking has him at, Wessel Nijman who is extremely talented and the Dutch legend Raymond van Barneveld. World Cup winner Daryl Gurney is here as are the likes of Dirk van Duijvenbode and Andrew Gilding. Richard Veenstra, Kevin Doets, Krzysztof Ratajski and Darius Labanauskas are among the qualifiers in the top half.
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Bottom Half
The bottom half of the draw is headed by the world champion Luke Littler who goes in search of two European Tour titles in as many weeks after he took the crown in Belgium last weekend. He is seeded to come up against Michael van Gerwen in the last four but the form of the Dutchman is such that the other seeds in the bottom quarter will fancy their chances of going deep this weekend. They are Chris Dobey, Josh Rock and Dave Chisnall while in the Littler quarter the other seeds are Gerwyn Price, Jonny Clayton and Danny Noppert.
The players ranked just outside the top 16 in the world rankings in this half of the draw include the talented Dutch star Gian van Veen as well as the World Grand Prix champion Mike De Decker, who will be looking for some form ahead of his defence of that title next month. Jermaine Wattimena, Ryan Searle, Cameron Menzies and Joe Cullen are some of the others in that bracket while the qualifiers include Niko Springer, Brendon Dolan, William O’Connor and the reigning European champion Ritchie Edhouse.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of outright bets this weekend with the first of them coming in the form of Jonny Clayton. I wouldn’t usually take someone in the Luke Littler quarter but Littler could be running into Gian van Veen in the last 16 so it isn’t a guarantee that the Welshman would need to play the world champion but even if he does, Littler won last week and it does take it out of a player so there is no guarantee we’ll see the youngster at his best here. Clayton knows how to win big tournaments and if something happens to Littler than this half becomes wide open. The three-time European Tour winner reached the final of a Players Championship event just over a week ago and at 25/1 could easily become a big price this weekend.
While it isn’t ideal that Wessel Nijman has to come into the tournament in the first round of the draw, it might be no bad thing as if he comes through that he’ll be up to speed before the bigger names fall into his path. Were he to come through that first round against Richard Veenstra, which he is a favourite to do, then he isn’t in a bad part of the draw. Damon Heta isn’t the worst seed to face first up and then Rob Cross is the seeded opponent in the last 16. It might get tougher if he runs into Luke Humphries in the quarter final but Humphries might need to overcome Dirk van Duijvenbode in his first match of the weekend which is a potential obstacle. Nijman has twice made the semi-finals of European Tour events this season and I’ll pay to see if he can make the frame here too.
Tips
Back J.Clayton to win Czech Darts Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back W.Nijman to win Czech Darts Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 41.00 with Boylesports (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
