The second round of the European Championship is on the schedule out in Dortmund on Sunday and the entire phase of the competition gets played out on what looks to be two very tasty sessions of play in the German city.
We leave the short sprints to six behind us now and head up to the race to 10 legs on Saturday where we have an afternoon session and an evening one which is loaded with quality and should provide some outstanding action.
Afternoon Session
We get underway with The Masters champion Chris Dobey on show. ‘Hollywood’ took care of the number one seed Dave Chisnall in the opening round and will look to add Stephen Bunting to his list of victims for the week. When they are done a wonderful looking afternoon session continues with Rob Cross taking on the former UK Open winner Danny Noppert before two absolute pearlers round off the first part of the day. The first of those sees Gerwyn Price going up against the World Matchplay winner Nathan Aspinall before the world champion Michael Smith meets Peter Wright in the tie of the second round.
Evening Session
We get started with a competitive looking match in the evening session as well as the new kid on the block, Gian van Veen, looks to follow up a wonderful performance on Friday night when he meets Daryl Gurney before James Wade looks to make another televised quarter final when he goes up against Jose de Sousa. The World Grand Prix champion Luke Humphries will be on the stage in the penultimate game of the night when he takes on the Polish Eagle, Krzysztof Ratajski. We conclude with the sole remaining home player in the event as Ricardo Pietreczko goes up against a Michael van Gerwen who had to survive a match dart to make it through the opening round.
Special Offer
OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH 888SPORT AND BET £10 TO GET £30 IN FREE BETS PLUS A £10 CASINO BONUS! PERFECT OFFER TO USE ON THIS TOURNAMENT! CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO JOIN. USE CODE 30F. NEW ACCOUNTS ONLY. 18+ T&Cs apply (See image for significant terms). Gamble Aware.
Betting
I’ve been waiting for Saturday to come along for some juicy bets now we are up to a format which we can go on the attack with. I’ll go for three in total and we begin with the opening match between Chris Dobey and Stephen Bunting which looks like it could be a close match between two men who are throwing very well and are pretty evenly matched. I get why Dobey is the favourite because he is probably that little bit more reliable on the doubles but if anything Bunting is probably slightly more sustained in the scoring. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bunting establishes a bit of a lead here but missed doubles catch up with him and he gets chinned in the end but whoever comes out on top these two just look far too evenly matched for this to be won any easier than 10-7. I like over 16.5 legs to get us up and running.
The second bet I like is for Peter Wright to hit more than 4.5 180s in his match against Michael Smith. I did consider backing the combined 180s to be more than 9.5 but since he changed bats the Smith 180s have completely dried up so I’ll just have Wright onside here. Wright couldn’t score at all in the beginning of his match against Gabriel Clemens but a swift dart change soon sorted that and in the end he finished with three 180s in the last three legs so if he can find the range from the start of a best of 19 which is surely going to have 15+ legs in it then I don’t think we are asking too much for Snaky to hit more than 4.5 180s. At odds against it is a no brainer for me.
The final bet comes in the evening where I am taking on Gian van Veen even though he did us a turn on Friday night. He was awesome in beating Damon Heta with the highest average this tournament has ever seen from a debutant but backing up a performance like that is never easy. Fair play to the youngster if he can do it but you would expect any 21-year-old to be inconsistent. The other issue I have with van Veen is Daryl Gurney is a canny operator and I expect him to slow him down a bit and get him out of his rhythm. The final concern with the Dutch ace is he hasn’t played many best of 19s in tournaments like this. Gurney has played plenty of them and while he wasn’t as impressive on the numbers as van Veen, he took care of Josh Rock in emphatic style with a 99 average and looks to be returning to his better form if you add that performance to his World Matchplay exploits. With experience very much on his side Gurney feels like a big price here.
Tips
Back C.Dobey vs S.Bunting – Over 16.5 legs for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfair
Back P.Wright – Over 4.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
Back D.Gurney to beat G.van Veen for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back him here:
