The second round of the German Darts Championship will be played out over two sessions of action in Hildesheim on Saturday as the final event of the European Tour season gets played down to the final day on Sunday.
This is the first day of the weekend that the seeded players will be on show which means that we get to see the defending champion Michael van Gerwen, World Grand Prix winner Luke Humphries and world champion Michael Smith among others for the first time.
Afternoon Session
We begin the afternoon session with a cracking looking contest as the former world champion Rob Cross goes up against the bright spark on the scene in Gian van Veen. When they are done Ryan Searle will look to make it into the final day when he meets Martin Lukeman. Danny Noppert is the third seed onto the stage this weekend. He will meet the American player Jules van Dongen before we head to the halfway mark of the afternoon with Damon Heta going up against Darryl Pilgrim.
The second half of the afternoon looks particularly good with Dirk van Duijvenbode facing the man who took care of Scott Waites on Friday in George Killington. The last three matches could all grace a much bigger stage than this as Josh Rock goes up against Stephen Bunting before Jonny Clayton will look to disappoint the home crowds when he faces Nico Kurz. A very good afternoon session concludes with the reigning European champion Ross Smith going up against Daryl Gurney.
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Evening Session
The quality of the afternoon should be maintained in the evening as well and it begins with the World Grand Prix semi-finalist Joe Cullen taking on Arron Monk who is back at this stage of a European Tour event. The number one seed Dave Chisnall will then look to make progress when he meets another home player in Gabriel Clemens. The World Matchplay champion Nathan Aspinall will then take to the stage to take on a James Wade who looked very assured on Friday before two home players take us to the halfway point when Martin Schindler meets Ricardo Pietreczko.
There are some good matches to round off the evening session and the second half of it begins with the defending champion Michael van Gerwen beginning his title defence when he takes on Steve Lennon. The pick of the evening matches sees Peter Wright going up against The Masters winner Chris Dobey before Luke Humphries plays his first match since winning the World Grand Prix. Boris Krcmar is his opponent. The day concludes with the world champion Michael Smith on show. He takes on Alan Soutar.
Betting
I’ll go with one bet on Saturday which comes in the evening session where bookmakers might be a little slow to react to the improved form of Peter Wright. Chris Dobey is a much improved player this season but the fact that he only secured his place at the European Championship when he won his first round game on Friday tells us that he hasn’t pulled up any trees on the European Tour this season and his record at this level is absolutely terrible. In 38 European Tour events he has made the final session just twice.
Wright is the winner of eight European Tour titles, one of which has come this season when he was supposedly out of form and low in confidence. In the last month he has been to the semi-final of the World Series Finals and the quarter final of the World Grand Prix where he missed three darts at a double to beat the eventual champion Luke Humphries. In 103 European Tour events, Wright has reached the final session 49 times. These events agree with him and with Dobey having survived match darts on Friday I suspect Wright will put him out of his misery here.
Tips
Back P.Wright to beat C.Dobey for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with Bet365
