As ever in the European Tour events the second day of action sees the last 32 played out across two busy sessions of play and that is no different on Saturday where that particular part of the European Darts Grand Prix will go ahead out in Sindelfingen.
Saturday is the day that the big names come out to play so it should provide us with another top day of darts to set up the final day on Sunday nicely. As ever there is an afternoon and an evening session and we’ll begin with the afternoon session.
Afternoon Session
The day begins with Terry Jenkins taking on Joe Murnan before Alan Norris goes up against a man he has a 100% record against in Nathan Aspinall. James Wade then begins his tournament against Mark Frost before the match of the afternoon which sees Simon Whitlock facing Raymond Barneveld in a real heavyweight tussle early in the competition.
After the break the final four matches see Gerwyn Price up against the German hero Max Hopp before veterans Steve Beaton and Alan Tabern do battle. Stephen Bunting faces Jermaine Wattimena in a match which won’t last long regardless of the score and the afternoon concludes with Michael Smith playing Tony West.
Evening Session
The big names are all in this session of play and it kicks off with Jelle Klaasen battling Jonny Clayton before an all-European battle between Benito van de Pas and Cristo Reyes. Kim Huybrechts then faces Martin Schlinder in another match between two continental Europeans and then last week’s runner up Mensur Suljovic faces Mick McGowan.
Michael van Gerwen begins his quest for back to back tournaments after the break when he takes on Darren Webster and then Peter Wright and Brendan Dolan do battle. The last two matches of the day sees Ian White playing James Wilson and Joe Cullen facing Robbie Green in what will be the first match of the tournament for both men.
Betting
As ever I struggle to get stuck into this middle day of the tournament because the qualifiers have the edge of a match on the stage which the seeds don’t have although admittedly with this being the third weekend in a row that these events have been going on that advantage is somewhat lessened.
There are a couple of small bets I’m going to go with though and we begin at the beginning of the day where it could be wise to take Terry Jenkins on. He has made the last 16 in each of the last two weekends but he has needed a deciding leg to win both last 32 matches against lesser opponents than Joe Murnan.
In the four matches Jenkins has played in the last fortnight he hasn’t averaged over 91 so if someone plays well against him there is a good chance he will beat him. Murnan played well on Friday and has experience of going deep in these events before and if he can bring his Friday form with him he’s overpriced at 7/4.
The other bet is in the evening when James Wilson looks to build on his 2-1 head to head lead on Ian White. White is another who has lost in the last 16 in the last two weekends and he needed a deciding leg against Devon Petersen last week with just an 86.20 average. If he turns up in that form here he could be in trouble.
James Wilson made the semi-final a couple of weeks ago so we know he is in good touch and he looked good again on Friday to further boost his, and our, confidence heading into this match. At 8/5 he has a spot of value on him too.
Tips
WON – Back J.Murnan to beat T.Jenkins for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with William Hill
Back him here:
WON – Back J.Wilson to beat I.White for a 3/10 stake at 2.60 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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