The second round of the European Championship takes place in Dortmund on Saturday when the last 16 is played out across a couple of sessions of play as we find out which eight men will make it through to the final day of the event on Sunday.
We saw some shocks appear on Friday which means that we lost a couple of big names but there are still plenty more on show across both of the sessions and with us being up to the best of 19 legs now we should get a decent day of action.
Afternoon Session
The day gets underway with the man who has declared he isn’t interested in qualifying for the Premier League in Ryan Searle. He would need to win this event for that to be in the equation anyway but he must be confident to mention it. Luke Woodhouse will be the player looking to end that discussion. When they are done Dirk van Duijvenbode is back on the big stage when he takes on Daryl Gurney before Michael Smith has a rare afternoon outing when he takes on a Ritchie Edhouse who was in brilliant form in the first round on Thursday. The afternoon session concludes with Danny Noppert taking on the World Grand Prix winner Mike De Decker for the second weekend in a row after the pair met in the Czech Darts Open last week.
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Evening Session
The evening session begins with what could be the pick of the matches in the second round when the former champion Michael van Gerwen meets a familiar foe in Gary Anderson in a really juicy clash. The second match of the night was meant to be a repeat of the final from last year. The man beaten in the title game, James Wade, has made it through but Peter Wright exited in the first round so it is Jermaine Wattimena who will meet ‘The Machine’. The world champion Luke Humphries will be involved in the penultimate game of the night when he faces Jonny Clayton in the second TV event in succession after ‘Cool Hand’ beat the Welshman in the last eight of the World Grand Prix. The one home star remaining in the competition is last onto the stage when Ricardo Pietreczko takes on Andrew Gilding who had a great win over Luke Littler in the first round.
Betting
I’ll play a couple of bets over the course of the day on Saturday and they both come in the afternoon session with the first being on Ritchie Edhouse to see off Michael Smith. Clearly we would be barking mad to expect Edhouse to play as well as he did in the first round. A 109.48 average and 121.52 scoring average are numbers reserved for the truly elite on a consistent basis but he might not need to play that well because I am far from convinced that Michael Smith is playing all that well. On the face of it the Smith win over Chisnall in the first round looks good with him winning 6-0 but a 92.02 average and 99.17 scoring average are numbers well below what Smith can do. Edhouse has generally been going pretty well this year and he has won the last three meetings between the two. He feels like a big price here.
The other price that surprises me is the odds against on Mike De Decker to beat Danny Noppert and cover a 1.5 leg handicap. De Decker beat Noppert 6-0 in Prague last weekend and there was nothing in the Noppert win over Joe Cullen that would worry me here. De Decker had a good win over Josh Rock in the first round where he scored well and in the main he finished well. I just think the De Decker scoring power will be too much to handle here. In the win over Cullen, in eight legs Noppert had a 96.50 scoring average and had seven scores of 131 or more. De Decker had a 105.29 scoring average and 11 131+ scores in a leg less. That should set up a lot of extra chances at double and with the confidence he is currently performing with that is likely to equate to a comfortable De Decker win.
Tips
Back R.Edhouse to beat M.Smith for a 3/10 stake at 2.90 with Coral
Back M.De Decker (-1.5 legs) to beat D.Noppert for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
