The second day of the European Darts Matchplay, the latest European Tour event in Innsbruck sees the seeded players come into play as the tournament continues on Saturday.
The likes of Michael Smith, Michael van Gerwen, Dave Chisnall and Peter Wright join the qualifiers headed by Raymond Barneveld, Kevin Painter and Alan Norris for what should be a high quality day of darts in Austria.
The 16 matches will be played across two sessions of play with eight games in each session and by the end of the day we’ll know the 16 men who will do battle for the title on Sunday.
The afternoon session has the likes of Dave Chisnall, Kim Huybrechts, Ian White and Robert Thornton playing but the match of that part of the day would look to be the one between Terry Jenkins and a rejuvenated Kevin Painter. In all honesty I’m struggling to see a bet there so I’ll just hope Huybrechts wins and move on to later.
The evening session has some great matches lined up. All eyes are immediately drawn to the one between Stephen Bunting and Raymond Barneveld. I was eyeing that match up as Bunting being a shade of value but Barneveld’s 5-0 head to head lead puts me off that school of thought I must say.
Michael Smith vs Alan Norris, Michael van Gerwen vs Ronny Huybrechts and Jelle Klaasen vs Dave Pallett should all be great matches that have the potential to be explosive but I’m happy to sit and watch them although there is something on my shoulder telling me to take Norris. I’ll withstand the pressure though!
I will take two bets and the first of those is a home player. Rowby-John Rodriguez plays Simon Whitlock for the second weekend in a row and I see no reason why he isn’t a big price to beat him for a second time in a row.
Rodriguez didn’t just beat Whitlock last week he beat him 6-1 so the Australian has got plenty to find on that evidence. He’ll also have to take on a partisan home ground cheering the youngster on and that is never easy. Rodriguez showed he’s in decent form with a win on Friday and at 13/8 he looks a solid punt there.
Andy Hamilton was probably the most eye catching winner of the opening day. He saw off Dean Winstanley 6-3 with an average over 103 and if he can repeat that on Saturday then the chances are he’ll be too good for Vincent van der Voort.
Van der Voort has been struggling for a couple of months now and he was easily seen off by Kevin Painter in this round last week with a sub 88 average. That isn’t going to get it done no matter how Hamilton plays so unless the Dutchman improves dramatically he’ll be there for the taking by a Hamilton who is visibly getting back to his best again.
Back R-J.Rodriguez to beat S.Whitlock for a 4/10 stake at 2.63 with Sportingbet
Back A.Hamilton to beat V.van der Voort for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Boylesports
Blog darts YTD: +21.45pts
