The second day of the European Darts Matchplay takes place on Saturday and as ever in these events it is the day in which the seeded players come to the party and get their campaigns underway after watching the qualifiers battle it out on Friday.
We saw some great darts on the first day on Friday and much more of the same will be expected on Saturday when the likes of Gerwyn Price, Jose de Sousa, Joe Cullen and Jonny Clayton are just one of the star names on show.
Afternoon Session
The action commences with Krzysztof Ratajski looking to make it through to finals day on Sunday when he takes on Luke Woodhouse. Rob Cross gets an early tee time on Saturday as he will be up in the second match of the day when he takes on James Wilson before Nathan Aspinall begins his quest for glory when he meets Jermaine Wattimena. Stephen Bunting is the player who will take us into the break. He faces the rising Polish star Sebastian Bialecki.
The World Cup champion Damon Heta brings us out of the interval when he goes up against Callan Rydz in what looks like the standout match in the evening. The number two seed Ryan Searle then gets his campaign underway when he meets Martin Lukeman before Jose de Sousa takes on the Dutch player Wesley Plaisier who is beginning to make a name for himself at this level. The afternoon concludes with Chris Dobey taking on the home player Lukas Wenig.
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Evening Session
The evening session gets underway with Luke Humphries, who has won multiple European Tour events, beginning his quest for another when he meets Cameron Menzies, who recorded a 100 average on Friday. Jonny Clayton is second up in the evening session. He meets the extremely in form Scott Williams before Daryl Gurney takes on another of the home players in Gabriel Clemens. We head to the evening interval with the former world champion Gerwyn Price going up against Rowby-John Rodriguez who had a great win over Danny Noppert on Saturday.
The second part of the evening session will get underway with The Masters champion Joe Cullen taking on Ian White before the home crowds get to see another of their heroes as Martin Schindler will look to make it through to Sunday when he faces Madars Razma. Dimitri Van den Bergh is on a good run at the minute and he’ll look to silence the home crowds when he meets Florian Hempel before the final match of the day sees two Dutch players on show as Dirk van Duijvenbode goes up against Jeffrey de Zwaan.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like over the course of the day but there is one in the afternoon session where Wesley Plaisier might have the opportunity to progress when he takes on Jose de Sousa. Clearly the Portuguese player is one of the best players in the world but he isn’t anything close to his top form at the minute. If we take away the World Cup as that has a nonsense format, de Sousa has lost five of his last six matches in all tournaments so his confidence must be low.
The last thing he needs therefore is to take on a confident Dutch youngster who has already had a match on the stage this week and who played mighty well in that match. He scored extremely well in his win over Jamie Hughes, hit 50% of the doubles and averaged over 97 with the highlight being a 167 finish. If he can bring that form with him for this match then de Sousa is going to have a few issues. I always fear for great scorers when they are out of form because it generally means they are missing doubles. Plaisier looks to be firing well at the outer ring and is good value here as a result.
Tips
Back W.Plaisier to beat J.de Sousa for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Boylesports
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