The second round of the European Championship was full of quality and at the end of it we are left with four cracking looking quarter finals which will be played out in a packed session of arrers in Belgium on Sunday afternoon.
The second round wasn’t good for the home crowds as their local hero Kim Huybrechts bombed out. He was joined by a couple of big name casualties in Stephen Bunting and James Wade. Bunting lost a super encounter with Dave Chisnall while Jelle Klaasen had too much for the Machine.
The quarter finals begin with John Henderson taking on Peter Wright. Henderson took advantage of a rank Rowby-John Rodriguez to come through on Saturday but if he averages less than 85 again he won’t be lasting long in this company.
To be fair to Hendo we know he is much better than that but he will have to be because Wright looks in ominous touch at the minute. He scored well against Huybrechts and checked out brilliantly and I’m not sure he’s for stopping here. I’m on the colourful one outright though so I don’t need to get involved and sweat out a handicap line.
The second match is probably the pick of the quarter finals as Michael van Gerwen takes on Dave Chisnall. These two are no strangers to one another having met 10 times already in 2015. MVG has had the better of those meetings but it is Chisnall who has won their last two battles.
I’m not so much interested in the match betting itself although on his performance against Bunting there is no denying that Chisnall is a big price here. Instead I think the best bet comes in the 180s market.
These two met over this exact distance at The Masters at the beginning of the year in a match van Gerwen won 10-9 and there were 20 180s in that match. There were nine in 12 legs in their most recent Premier League match and in the World Matchplay last year they served up 18 in 28 legs.
We saw in the Grand Slam that van Gerwen is peppering the 60 and Chisnall is also doing it so I fully expect a dozen 180s to come along in this match if not a few more.
Gary Anderson takes on Jelle Klaasen in the third match of the afternoon and this could be a tricky little match for the world champion as Klaasen looks in great touch at the minute.
That said Anderson has won their last five meetings so I wouldn’t want to go against him. The prices look about right in this match so I’ll take a watching brief here, as I will in the last quarter final where Adrian Lewis takes on his former mentor Phil Taylor.
Both men have played well this weekend and this could go either way. I’m on Lewis outright though so I’ll sit on that outright bet and hope the younger Stokie beats the elder one here.
Back M.van Gerwen vs D.Chisnall – Over 11.5 180s for a 5/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
