The first round of the European Championship comes to an end in Dortmund on Friday evening when the bottom half of the draw appear on the stage for the first time this week, as we finalise the last 16 line up.
This bottom half is loaded with big names so the quality should be of an exceptionally high standard throughout the night as the likes of Michael van Gerwen, Gerwyn Price and Peter Wright get their campaign underway.
First Four Matches
We begin with the winner of the Belgian Darts Open as Dave Chisnall is the first man up onto the stage. He faces Stephen Bunting in what is a bit of a local derby with both men coming from the same part of the world. When they are done Dimitri Van den Bergh will look to make it through to Saturday when he meets Daryl Gurney. Hungarian Darts Trophy winner Joe Cullen is the third big name up onto the stage. He takes on Ross Smith who is in decent form before we get to the halfway mark with Jose de Sousa going up against the first of two home men in action in Martin Schindler.
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Later Four Matches
The world champion Peter Wright opens up the second half of the night. The German Darts Open winner will be looking for a confidence restoring weekend here and begins his campaign against Ryan Meikle before International Darts Open champion Gerwyn Price takes on Rowby-John Rodriguez. The penultimate match sees Michael van Gerwen beginning his quest to get his hands on this title for the first time in five years when he meets Chris Dobey before we conclude with Jonny Clayton up against the other German player in the tournament in Gabriel Clemens.
Betting
I’ll go with the one bet over the course of the evening and it comes fairly early in the session as I like Ross Smith to beat Joe Cullen at odds against. Cullen can be brilliant on TV but he can also be pretty ordinary too and that was the case in the last European Tour event where he went out with a below 90 average. We are still waiting for that really big breakthrough for Smith on the TV but there is no doubt he has the game and he’s been in most of the TV and European Tour events this season so he is getting more and more comfortable on the stage.
Smith has actually won two of their last three meetings and interestingly his two wins were on a big stage – at the Grand Prix last season and the Czech Darts Open this season. Cullen beat Smith in a Players Championship event last week but that was only in a deciding leg so the ‘Rockstar’ seems to have a bit of trouble getting the better of Smith whenever they meet. I would imagine when the season started just being here was the aim for Smith and now he can relax a little and let his arm go. I think he’s more than an even chance in this one.
Tips
Back R.Smith to beat J.Cullen for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back him here:
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