The Grand Slam of Darts concludes on Sunday when as ever the semi-finals and the final will be played out across two sessions of play inside the Aldersley Leisure Village on what is already one of the best days of the year.
The two semi-finals take place in the afternoon session with the final coming along in the evening. As always in this tournament, time restrictions will deny us the chance to preview the final but we’ll have a look at the two semi-finals.
Raymond van Barneveld vs Michael Smith
The opening semi-final sees the man who won this title 10 years ago in Raymond van Barneveld going up against the world finalist Michael Smith, who will be hoping that this is the day his TV title drought comes to an end.
That in itself is going to bring pressure for Smith, not least because he is now the highest ranked player left in the tournament and favourite to win it. We saw at the European Championship last month that such a position doesn’t necessarily yield the title though. Van Barneveld has rolled back the years to make it to the final day of the tournament and he has his sights set on improving his ranking ahead of the World Championship while taking the title over the course of the day. If he can play like he did against Gerwyn Price in his quarter final then you would feel he has every chance of achieving his aim. The question is whether Barneveld has another best of 31 in him at a high level. If he does he is a live runner here because we know Smith will miss doubles and let him in at some point. That is a question mark and I don’t like betting on what we are unsure of. One thing we can be sure of is that Smith is going to score in this match and a 9.5 180 line doesn’t look out of reach. He covered that and some in the quarter final and tends to score well against Barneveld. I expect Smith to reach double figures in the 180 count in this match.
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.
Nathan Aspinall vs Luke Humphries
The second semi-final presents two men with a huge opportunity to make it into a major final when Nathan Aspinall goes up against a Luke Humphries who will be feeling the joy of dumping Michael van Gerwen out of the tournament in the quarter final on Saturday night.
Humphries overpowered the Dutch star in that match with a barrage of great scoring and big finishing and if he can maintain that sort of form in this one then he is going to have a real chance. He has never been to a TV final of this magnitude before though and that could be an issue, although he has made the UK Open final which should help with any nerves. Aspinall wasn’t great in his quarter final win over Alan Soutar and the number of doubles he is missing is becoming more than a slight concern. He won that match despite missing 19 darts at a double. He was thankful his opponent was even worse on the outer ring. There needs to be a serious improvement in Aspinall if he is going to win this one but Humphries himself is anything but clutch on his doubles. He missed a ridiculous 32 darts at the outer ring in beaten MVG. You would imagine that Humphries will score well enough to be able to burn darts at a double but I’m never comfortable taking someone who misses so many so this is an easy match to sit out.
Tips
Back M.Smith – Over 9.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 1.87 with BetVictor
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2022
