The opening day of the European Darts Open sees the qualifiers battling it out for the right to take on a seeded player in the second round of the tournament when 16 matches take place across two sessions of play on Friday.
Although we have to wait until Saturday for the really standout stars to come to the party, there is still plenty of recognisable names taking to the stage on Friday and some really good matches for us to enjoy throughout the day.
Afternoon Session
We begin the afternoon session with a clash between William O’Connor and Marko Kantele before two men who have kind of stalled in their careers take to the stage when Ryan Joyce goes up against Jermaine Wattimena. Two Irish players go up against each other in the third match of the afternoon when Brendan Dolan meets Steve Lennon and then we go to the interval with Krzysztof Ratajski taking on Bradley Brooks.
The second half of the afternoon begins with two European players on show when Geert Nentjes faces Ricardo Pietreczko before two more from the continent look horns when Rene Eidams takes on Jurien van der Velde. The final two matches of the afternoon session sees Jose de Sousa looking to make the most of his late entry into the tournament when he takes on Ted Evetts before Luke Woodhouse meets Andy Boulton to round off the afternoon.
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Evening Session
Although we are waiting for the seeded players to come into the competition we still have a decent evening session to enjoy. It begins with Jim Williams taking on John Henderson in a big match for the latter with him not having his tour card any longer. When they are done the European champion Ross Smith will meet Pascal Rupprecht before Ryan Meikle takes on Nico Kurz. We reach the halfway point of the evening session with Maik Kuivenhoven taking on a Chris Dobey who was playing in the Premier League in Newcastle 24 hours prior to their match.
The second part of the evening begins with the popular Raymond van Barneveld in action. The Dutch legend will meet Filip Sebesta with the winner setting up a clash with Michael van Gerwen on Saturday evening. When they are done the home player Florian Hempel will take on James Wade before the German number two Gabriel Clemens faces Ian White. The evening concludes with a heavyweight clash between Stephen Bunting and Daryl Gurney.
Betting
This has been a pretty busy week so I suspect we might get some surprises along the way on Friday so I’m going to tread a little carefully but there is one bet which I like the look of over the course of the day and that comes in the evening session where I fancy the home man Nico Kurz could be overpriced to see off a Ryan Meikle who can be very hit and miss but who has won just three of his last 10 matches in all competitions.
Meikle qualified for the first European Tour event but then duly got thrashed 6-1 by Lukas Wenig with an 80 average. He might not play that badly again here but he is going to have a crowd against him which is never ideal and it might be that we don’t see the best of Meikle as a result of that. Kurz is perfectly capable on the stage. He has shown that in the past and he has averaged over 90 in a number of the qualifying events recently and if he has that form with him and with the crowd behind him I think he is overpriced at 5/2.
Tips
Back N.Kurz to beat R.Meikle for a 3/10 stake at 3.50 with Coral
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