The second day of the European Darts Grand Prix sees the last 32 of the latest European Tour event taking place out in Germany with two sessions of tasty looking darts on show for the crowd in the venue and us watching on to enjoy.
As ever with the last 32, this is the day the seeded players enter the tournament so we get to see the world champion Luke Humphries and the defending champion Gerwyn Price for the first time this weekend.
Afternoon Session
We begin with the World Championship semi-finalist Scott Williams looking to take care of one of the seeds when he opens up the show against Krzysztof Ratajski before the former European champion Ross Smith faces Luke Woodhouse. The third match of the afternoon is a good looking affair as Ryan Searle faces The Masters winner Stephen Bunting who was a qualifier every seed wanted to avoid. Dirk van Duijvenbode takes us to the halfway point of the session when he meets Ritchie Edhouse.
The second half of the afternoon is full of great matches with Danny Noppert bringing us out of the break when he meets Daryl Gurney before Jonny Clayton looks to turn his season back on track when he goes up against another dangerous qualifier in Chris Dobey. The penultimate match in the session sees the number one seed Dave Chisnall beginning his campaign against Keane Barry before Josh Rock rounds off the afternoon against Jeffrey Sparidaans.
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Evening Session
Gary Anderson is back on the European Tour as a seeded player this weekend and he opens up his campaign in the curtain raiser for the evening when he takes on Christian Perez before the defending champion Gerwyn Price begins his title defence when he meets Brendan Dolan who has a decent record against him. A good looking clash comes next as Michael Smith faces Raymond van Barneveld before we get to the halfway point of the evening with Damon Heta meeting Mickey Mansell.
The second part of the evening begins with Rob Cross facing off against the man who won the last European Tour event last weekend in Martin Schindler before Michael van Gerwen gets his tournament started against the unheralded Johan Engstrom. The tie of the round is the penultimate match of the day as we have a repeat of the world final with Luke Humphries facing off against Luke Littler. Two German players close off the second day of action when Ricardo Pietreczko meets Gabriel Clemens.
Betting
There are some good looking matches to enjoy over the course of Saturday but in terms of betting proposition there is only one bet that jumps out at me and that is the even money on Martin Schindler to beat Rob Cross. Cross looks to have hit a wall at the minute. Whether that is the sheer volume of darts he is playing I’m not sure but he arrives in Germany having lost four of his last five matches in all competitions which doesn’t bode well.
That certainly isn’t the case for Schindler. He won the European Tour event last week in fine fashion, seeing off the likes of Joe Cullen, Chris Dobey and Gerwyn Price along the way and then he opened up his campaign this weekend with a huge win over Gian van Veen where he averaged a shade under 110. Schindler is clearly playing the darts of his life at the minute and to be fair it is good to see. This has to be a pick em at worst if not a shade of favouritism on the German. The fact it is the other way around reels me in here.
Tips
Back M.Schindler to beat R.Cross for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
