The last European Tour event of the season takes place this week which means that once the German Darts Championship has concluded we will know the full field for the European Championship which begins on Thursday.
Peter Wright ensured he would be at the European Championship last year when he won this title and he is back in Germany looking to make a successful defence of the crown. Plenty of players have a lot to play for this weekend as they look to take the title from him.
Recent Winners
2024 – Peter Wright
2023 – Ricardo Pietreczko
2022 – Michael van Gerwen
2020 – Devon Petersen
2019 – Daryl Gurney
2018 – Michael van Gerwen
2017 – Peter Wright
2016 – Alan Norris
2015 – Michael van Gerwen
2014 – Gary Anderson
The Format
We have a slightly new format this season which means that the players ranked 17-32 on the order of merit and the qualifiers meet each other over the course of the play on Friday before the last 32 of the tournament is played over two sessions of action on Saturday, with the last 16 on Sunday afternoon and the quarter finals on Sunday night. They are all the best-of-11 legs with the semi-finals also on Sunday evening. They are the best-of-13 and then the final in the same session is the best-of-15 legs. The draw has been pre-determined and is played in a straight knockout format.
Top Half
The halves have been flipped for the final European Tour event of the season so we have the number two seed as the highest in the top half of proceedings. James Wade is the second seed this week with so many players not making the trip with the main event next week. He is seeded to meet Jonny Clayton in what would be a tasty semi-final but six other seeds will want a piece of that particular action. They are Gerwyn Price, Danny Noppert, Gian van Veen, Damon Heta, Ross Smith and Mike De Decker.
If you have watched the European Tour events all season you will know that the unseeded players are split between those ranked 17-32 in the world and some qualifiers and in this section we have the likes of Nathan Aspinall, Raymond van Barneveld, Wessel Nijman and the World Cup winner Daryl Gurney from the former while Luke Humphries, Niels Zonneveld, Jermaine Wattimena and Jeffrey de Graad are all capable. Keane Barry, Steve Lennon, Darius Labanuaskas and Christian Kist catch the eye among the qualifiers.
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Bottom Half
Stephen Bunting is now the top seed in the tournament after the late withdrawal of Luke Humphries, who was probably always going to pull out after the exertions of last week at the World Grand Prix. The Bullet had a disappointing time of it in Leicester and will be out to make up for that in a half of the draw which sees him on a collision course with Chris Dobey in the semi-final. As with the top half, six other seeds will be looking to stop that from happening and they are Rob Cross, the defending champion Peter Wright, the home favourite Martin Schindler, Josh Rock, Dave Chisnall and Ryan Searle.
There are a few qualifiers and players ranked outside the top 16 who catch the eye in this half of the draw too with the attention likely to be on the German ace Gabriel Clemens and Ricardo Pietreczko while Dirk van Duijvenbode, Cameron Menzies and Ryan Joyce are all extremely capable. The likes of Joe Cullen, William O’Connor, Karel Sedlacek, Radek Szaganski and Ricky Evans are some of the others in this half who could have big weekends.
Betting
I’ll go for a player in each half of the draw this weekend. In the top half Danny Noppert looks to have a nice draw. He showed at the World Grand Prix that he was playing well. In a tournament which had a double start, he was hitting 180s for fun and in the end it took a good showing from Luke Humphries to put him out of the event but he won’t be running into the world number one this weekend so that is a positive. Gerwyn Price will be a bit of a challenge but he wasn’t scoring all that well in Leicester which might open the door for Noppert should the two meet. Noppert was the finalist of the European Tour event two tournaments ago and given how well he went at the World Grand Prix he looks a big price at 28/1 in an event devoid of the top three in the world rankings.
The other player I like this weekend is the home ace Martin Schindler. If you go back a month or so to the World Series of Darts Finals we saw what home advantage did for Michael van Gerwen in that event and the German crowds are no different. There is a reason why Luke Littler doesn’t come back to Germany anymore so having the crowds on his side is no bad thing for Schindler. Schindler has won three European Tour events in the last two seasons and he has won a Players Championship event this year too. Schindler has landed in a brilliant quarter of the draw and if he can build up a head of steam he could be a real danger come Sunday night.
Tips
Back D.Noppert to win German Darts Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back M.Schindler to win German Darts Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Betfred (1/2 1-2)
