We’re down to the final 16 in the Dutch Darts Masters and each of them will be back on Sunday hoping to play four matches in the one day and land a nice £25,000 bonus.
It might be the day of love worldwide but there will be no love on the oche as a number of the stars of the game will battle it out for the first European Tour title of the year.
Saturday was a day the big names showed up and provided the reason why they are the best in the world. In all there were eight averages over 100 on what was a really high quality day of darts over in Holland.
The day wasn’t without some shocks which you always tend to get in these events. The biggest one of them all was the demise of the world champion Gary Anderson. He was uprooted by Mervyn King while Kim Huybrechts was beaten by Devon Peterson. Michael van Gerwen, Adrian Lewis, James Wade and Peter Wright all cantered into the last 16.
The whole of the last 16 will be played out on Sunday afternoon before the tournament draws to a conclusion on Sunday evening and we’ve some great matches to be played.
It all begins with what should be a couple of one-sided matches when Michael van Gerwen plays Justin Pipe and Dave Chisnall faces Ritchie Edhouse. You’d expect van Gerwen and Chisnall to set up yet another meeting with wins there.
Mervyn King will be looking to continue his good form against Devon Petersen in the third game. I think he’ll do that but he does have the big name win factor to overcome so I’ll leave him be at odds on.
Two even looking matches follow that one. Benito van de Pas took James Wade to the cleaners in the Players Championship Finals last year and he’ll be out to do the same here but Wade looks in good touch so I’ll let that one play out.
I’ll also let the Michael Smith vs Mensur Suljovic match play out without a bet too. Suljovic came past an abject performance from Rowby-John Rodriguez on Saturday and needs to improve immeasurably on that but he’s given Smith problems before and is the kind of slow player Smith can struggle against. I’ll leave that alone but get involved in the next match.
That sees Simon Whitlock taking on Jelle Klaasen and I think the Aussie is a bit of value here. Annoyingly I passed him over on Saturday when I shouldn’t have done but I’m not making that mistake again.
Whitlock showed he is in decent touch with a run to a semi-final in one of the UK Open qualifiers last weekend. He saw off James Wilson and Dave Chisnall on the way to a defeat to Michael van Gerwen and there’s nothing wrong with that run. He beat Ian White here on Saturday and averaged over a ton in doing so and looked very good with it.
Jelle Klaasen might just be suffering a World Championship hangover which isn’t ideal really. He didn’t really feature too deep in the UK Open events last week and was pretty poor in The Masters. He came past Kevin Painter in the last 32 here on Saturday but his 92 average wasn’t an inspiring performance.
Whitlock is odds against here which lures me in especially as he leads the head to heads between the two. As long as he can hit the pressure doubles I think he could well have Klaasen covered in this one.
The last two matches of the day see Peter Wright going up against Daryl Gurney in what should be a good match to watch and Adrian Lewis and Terry Jenkins which should be likewise. I’d expect the two favourites to win there but there isn’t really a betting opportunity. I’m on Lewis outright anyway so I’ve no need to back him again so I’ll take just the one in the afternoon session.
WON – Back S.Whitlock to beat J.Klaasen for a 4/10 stake at 2.38 with Coral
