The opening day of the European Darts Trophy takes place in Gottingen on Friday as the players ranked 17-32 in the world go up against one of the qualifiers in the first round with the winners progressing to set up a clash with a seeded player on Saturday.
Although we have to wait until Saturday for the seeded players to come into the tournament, we still have some household names on show over the course of Friday, where actually we have one of the better opening days of a European Tour event taking place.
Afternoon Session
We get underway with one of the form players of the last six months in Jermaine Wattimena. He will look to make it through when he takes on Marko Kantele. When they are done two Scottish players will meet when Cameron Menzies faces Alan Soutar. The third match onto the stage sees the former UK Open winner Andrew Gilding facing Callan Rydz before we get to the halfway point of the afternoon with a match between the current European champion Ritchie Edhouse and the impressive Kevin Doets.
The second part of the afternoon will see a couple of the big boys in the PDC ranks taking to the stage when Dirk van Duijvenbode going up against Boris Krcmar before the highly rated Dutch ace Wessel Nijman meets the home qualifier Paul Krohne. There is another home qualifier on show in the penultimate match of the afternoon when Michael Unterbuchner faces the former European champion Ross Smith. The afternoon concludes with Luke Woodhouse meeting yet another home star in Dominik Gruellich.
Special Offer
OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH 888SPORT AND BET £10 TO GET £30 IN FREE BETS PLUS A £10 CASINO BONUS! PERFECT OFFER TO USE ON THIS TOURNAMENT! CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO JOIN. USE CODE 30F. NEW ACCOUNTS ONLY. 18+ T&Cs apply (See image for significant terms). Gamble Aware.
Evening Session
The Germans keep on coming on home soil throughout a really good looking evening session. Daryl Gurney opens up the action when he faces the rising star from Germany in Niko Springer before we have an all-German battle between Ricardo Pietreczko and Daniel Klose. The third match of the session could be a sleeper for being the pick of the matches when Ryan Joyce takes on Joe Cullen before we get to the halfway point of the evening with Ryan Searle facing yet another German thrower in Laurin Welk.
Raymond van Barneveld will get the second part of the evening underway when he goes up against the popular Ricky Evans in a good looking match before the runner-up from the first European Tour event and reigning World Grand Prix champion Mike De Decker takes to the stage. Martin Lukeman will be his opponent. The German number one Martin Schindler will be involved in the penultimate match of the day when he takes on Adam Hunt before Gian van Veen concludes a decent day of darts when he meets Connor Scutt.
Betting
Two bets jump out at me on this card on Friday. I was eyeing up three and four bets but Kevin Doets and Niko Springer are annoyingly favourites and I’d rather back them as outsiders so the first bet comes in the form of Alan Soutar to beat Cameron Menzies. We all know about the issues that Menzies has on a stage. He just can’t seem to settle and misses a horrendous amount of doubles and that could be a real problem here. Soutar is probably the opposite to Menzies in that the floor stuff is much of a muchness for him but he relishes the adrenalin of the big stage and usually looks so comfortable on it. Soutar has gone well in Players Championship events recently and with the difference in stage presence between these two I think he is the one to be on here.
Moving into the evening and I can’t avoid a bet on Ricky Evans to get the better of Raymond van Barneveld. I opposed Barneveld in the last European Tour event but Cam Crabtree fluffed his lines, possibly down to a little inexperience. Evans doesn’t have that but he might well have a greater motive to perform now. He sadly lost his sister recently and if you follow him on social media you will know how much she meant to him so he might be playing for her. Barneveld looks in a bit of a slump to me. Evans had a good week on the pro tour earlier in the week and I feel he is playing well enough to upset the big Dutchman here.
Tips
Back A.Soutar to beat C.Menzies for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Unibet
Back R.Evans to beat R.van Barneveld for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Be the first to comment on "European Darts Trophy 2025 – Day 1 Tips and Betting Preview"