The German Darts Grand Prix gets underway on Saturday when the unseeded players come out to play in Munich for the opening round of the tournament with the aim of setting up a meeting with a seeded player on Sunday.
We have to wait until Sunday to see the likes of the defending champion Michael Smith and the world champion Luke Humphries and the other great names but there are plenty of recognisable players to keep us interested on Saturday.
Afternoon Session
We get started with a good looking match as Ryan Joyce looks to make progress at the expense of Kevin Doets before two Celtic warriors collide when Brendan Dolan meets Alan Soutar. Jermaine Wattimena has an excellent chance to make progress into the second round of the competition when he faces Franz Roetzsch before we reach the halfway mark of the afternoon session with Cameron Menzies looking to make it through at the expense of Mike De Decker.
Jeffrey de Zwaan is the more recognisable of the two players bringing us into the second half of the afternoon. He faces Matthias Ehlers before Richard Veenstra looks for another win on the European stage when he takes on Oliver Mueller. Luke Woodhouse has shown good signs of form this season and he’ll be hoping to take care of Niels Zonneveld in the penultimate game of the afternoon before Chris Dobey rounds off the session against Viktor Tingstrom.
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Evening Session
We have a great looking evening session to enjoy and it begins with one of the home players on show in Lukas Wenig going up against Steve Lennon before probably the heavyweight tie of the round as James Wade faces Daryl Gurney. Two TV tournament winners meet in the third game of the evening when Andrew Gilding plays Joe Cullen and then we reach the halfway point of the session with the home star Martin Schindler taking on Vitezslav Sedlak.
The second part of the evening starts out with another home player taking to the stage as Michael Unterbuchner has the daunting task of facing Nathan Aspinall before two Dutch stars collide when the legend Raymond van Barneveld goes up against the future of the sport in Gian van Veen. Peter Wright is on show in the opening round and he will compete in the penultimate match of the night when he faces Jose de Sousa before the UK Open champion Dimitri Van den Bergh rounds off the day against another home star in Gabriel Clemens.
Betting
I’ll ease my way into things this weekend but there is one which I’m surprised at the odds with and that comes in the evening session when Raymond van Barneveld takes on Gian van Veen. There is no doubt that van Veen is going to be the future of the sport and he’ll have a huge career but he is still prone to slip ups on the big stage. If we go back to the World Championship he came up short against Man Lok Leung and then in the opening European Tour event he was thrashed by Andreas Harrysson.
Usually I would always look to the future rather than the past in these clash of generations but Barneveld showed a couple of weeks ago that he isn’t to be consigned into the history books just yet when he won PC5, beating Michael Smith and Gary Anderson on his way to the final before thrashing Stephen Bunting for the title. Barneveld also won the only previous meeting with van Veen last month and is still comfortable enough on the stage to do some damage. I think odds against is a shade too big on Barney here.
Tips
Back R.van Barneveld to beat G.van Veen for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Bet365
