The seeds enter the European Darts Trophy in Muelheim on Saturday and that is when the tournament really begins for me even though there were some stellar names in action on the opening day of the tournament.
Although the seeds are only just coming into the tournament we suffered some big name casualties on day one of the event on Friday when Raymond Barneveld, Alan Norris and Gerwen Price were all shown the exit door in ruthless style.
Moving onto the rest of the tournament and as always Michael van Gerwen is the number one seed. He might not have life all his own way in this event though with Dave Chisnall a potential quarter final opponent while Peter Wright and Adrian Lewis are both in good form and could await the Dutchman in the semi-final.
In truth I’m not sure who will come through that top half of the draw but whoever it may be my main attention for outright bets this weekend come in the bottom half of the tournament where the challengers aren’t as strong until the final.
Michael Smith is the defending champion in this tournament and that should give him plenty of confidence going into the event – not that he is ever short of that anyway. His immediate draw looks comfortable enough. He plays Wes Newton in the last 32 and then either Vincent van der Voort or Kevin Painter in the last 16 so he’s a big favourite to make the last eight.
If he gets there Brendan Dolan or Mervyn King could be an opponent and no disrespect to either of those but you’d take them as quarter final opponents. From there the tournament will be wide open so with the draw he has and the knowledge he’s won here before I quite like Smith at 20/1.
I’m also going to chance someone in the bottom quarter of the draw. Admittedly this is a tougher section with Stephen Bunting and Christian Kist – two former world champions – in it as qualifiers and with James Wade, Robert Thornton and Ian White the seeds someone is going to have to play well to come through.
It could be that the person to do it is Simon Whitlock. The Australian has a good record in Germany and his performance in the recent World Series events wasn’t all that bad. There have been signs that he might be coming back into some form recently. He went well in the first round of the Matchplay in a tricky test against Klaasen and matched Ian White in the next round for a good while.
Anyone could come through the bottom section of the draw but if being back in Germany brings the best out of Whitlock then the 50/1 price on him will be pretty big. He’s worth a small stake in a competitive section of the draw.
Back M.Smith to win European Darts Trophy (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back S.Whitlock to win European Darts Trophy (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 51.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
