The European Tour returns this weekend after a week off and it heads to Sindelfingen in Germany for the European Darts Grand Prix, the ninth of the 13 qualifying tournaments which make up the European Championship field.
Luke Humphries was a machine on the European Tour last season and he is the defending champion this weekend. One or two big names have swerved this off the back of the Premier League conclusion so his title defence might be a little easier than normal.
Recent Winners
2022 – Luke Humphries
2020 – Jose de Sousa
2019 – Ian White
2018 – Michael van Gerwen
2017 – Peter Wright
2016 – Michael van Gerwen
2015 – Kim Huybrechts
2014 – Mervyn King
The Format
The format for these tournaments remains the same as before, which means that the qualifiers meet each other over the course of the play on Friday before the last 32 of the tournament is played over two sessions of action on Saturday, with the last 16 on Sunday afternoon and the quarter finals on Sunday night. They are all the best-of-11 legs with the semi-finals also on Sunday evening. They are the best-of-13 and then the final in the same session is the best-of-15 legs. The draw has been pre-determined and is played in a straight knockout format.
Top Half
The defending champion Luke Humphries is actually the number one seed this weekend and he is in the top half of the draw and spearheading it as a result. If everything goes to the numbers then he will take on Damon Heta in the semi-final but there are plenty of darts to be thrown before that matchup is finalised. Six other seeds are in this half looking to stop that match from happening. They are the UK Open champion Andrew Gilding, the man he replaced as the winner of that tournament in Danny Noppert, Josh Rock, Joe Cullen, the beaten Premier League finalist Gerwyn Price and Martin Schindler.
It isn’t just the seeded players who are household names in this half of the draw. The home crowds will be hoping for a big week from Gabriel Clemens while Ian White is coming back to form. The biggest two names though are Chris Dobey and Raymond van Barneveld although in terms of honours Simon Whitlock is right up there as well. Jermaine Wattimena, Keegan Brown, Josh Payne and Ricky Evans are all capable players who could cause an upset or two as well.
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Bottom Half
I mentioned above that some big names have skipped the event this weekend and that means the highest seed in the bottom half is Dirk van Duijvenbode. He isn’t a regular winner of European Tour events though so that will give the other seeds in this section plenty of belief that this could be their weekend. The next highest seed is Dave Chisnall who is having a good season. The others are the current European champion Ross Smith, Nathan Aspinall, Ryan Searle, Dimitri Van den Bergh, Rob Cross and Jonny Clayton.
Once again there are plenty of household names in this section of the draw who had to qualify for the tournament. Krzysztof Ratajski, Daryl Gurney and Jose de Sousa are probably the pick of them but Steve Beaton is a name that everyone knows. Fellow Lakeside world champion Christian Kist will be on the big stage this weekend while Alan Soutar is another who has risen through the ranks. Nico Kurz will hope to use the home crowd to his advantage.
Betting
With there being no Michael Smith, Michael van Gerwen or Peter Wright this weekend much of the value has gone from the outright market but there might just be a bit of juice in Nathan Aspinall to win the tournament at 16/1. A couple of weeks ago in the previous European Tour event he made it to the quarter final where he went down in a brilliant contest with Dave Chisnall, losing out in a deciding leg, but I fancy he might be able to go deep in this event.
Aspinall will probably have watched the Premier League semi-finals on Thursday with motivation to go well here having only missed out on that night by one win throughout the regular season. Only two of the men who were involved in those semi-finals are here so there is an opening for someone to come through. The Asp has an awkward early draw but his half of the draw isn’t too bad overall and if missing out on the PL semis has put a bit of extra fuel in his belly he could deliver at a fair price.
Tips
Back N.Aspinall to win European Darts Grand Prix (e/w) for a 1.5/10 stake at 17.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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