The first round of the European Championship concludes in Dortmund on Friday evening when the bottom half of the draw come out to play for the first time as the second round draw gets finalised ahead of a big weekend of darts.
It means that it is the first time we will see the defending champion Peter Wright, world champion Luke Humphries and the new superstar of the game in Luke Littler on what should we a cracking night of darts in the German city.
First Four Matches
We open up the evening with two men who have won an ITV event in the past as Danny Noppert takes on a Joe Cullen who will be looking to find some form this weekend after an indifferent few months. Two more men who have won TV titles in the not too distant past meet in the second game of the night when Chris Dobey takes on Jonny Clayton. Two former winners collide in the third match of the session when Rob Cross takes on James Wade and then we reach the halfway point of the evening with the only home player on show in Ricardo Pietreczko taking on Damon Heta.
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Later Four Matches
The second half of the evening is laced with quality and it gets underway with Peter Wright beginning the defence of his title when he goes up against Jermaine Wattimena. Luke Littler then makes his debut in the tournament in the third to last game of the night. He meets Andrew Gilding before the pick of the matches on the night comes in the penultimate game of the evening when the world champion Luke Humphries faces Nathan Aspinall. The first round concludes with the most recent TV tournament winner Mike De Decker looking to make it into the second round when he takes on Josh Rock.
Betting
I’m a bit surprised that there has been such a move for Jermaine Wattimena to get the better of Peter Wright because the Dutchman rarely shows his best stuff on the TV and while he went to the quarter final of the last of the European Tour events last weekend, two of his four matches saw him average below 90 and another had him just over 91. Those kind of efforts aren’t winning elite matches very often so I have to be on Wright here at 10/11. Wright should be a clearer favourite than that.
Wright is the defending champion here so that will give him some form of motivation but it is also a stage where he has had good memories and that will help if he isn’t quite as confident as he would like to be. He had a good win over Cameron Menzies in Prague last week where he was averaging over 100 for much of the match. Wright is the heavier scorer and is likely to be much more reliable on the doubles and having won the last seven meetings between the two he looks overpriced to me here.
Tips
Back P.Wright to beat J.Wattimena for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
