The group stage draws to a close at the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton on Tuesday evening when Groups E-H come to a conclusion on what promises to be a dramatic night of arrers in a tournament which is becoming very intriguing already.
The knockout stage of this tournament doesn’t technically begin until Wednesday evening but there are three straight knockout games on the Tuesday schedule and dotted in and around those are some star names.
First Four Matches
We begin the night with the three matches which sees a player already through to the last 16 taking on a player who will be going home at the end of the night. Dave Chisnall falls into the latter category but he opens up the action against Stowe Buntz, who will be here until at least Thursday. World Matchplay champion Nathan Aspinall is already through and he concludes his group action against Ricardo Pietreczko while Michael van Gerwen will warm up for the last 16 by facing fellow Dutch player Martijn Kleermaker. The interesting group on Tuesday is Group F where Andrew Gilding will look to put himself in pole position to qualify. He knows a 5-2 win against Haruki Muramatsu will see him through.
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Later Four Matches
Should Gilding win by that margin then that would put the pressure on Danny Noppert and Brendan Dolan in what could be the Group F decider depending on that result in the earlier game. It is a lot more straightforward for the final three matches of the evening as they are all straight knockout. The pick of those games comes in Group E where Peter Wright and Stephen Bunting will battle for a place in the last 16. Group G concludes after that as Rob Cross and Fallon Sherrock meet to determine who follows van Gerwen into the last 16. The final match of the night sees the Women’s World Matchplay champion Beau Greaves bidding to make the knockout stage. She takes on Damon Heta.
Betting
All of the statistics so far this week would suggest that Stephen Bunting is playing much better than Peter Wright and I think that is what our eyes have told us as well. Both men have lost to Stowe Buntz, which with no disrespect intended is clearly not a great result for two former world champions but Bunting was unlucky in his defeat having averaged seven points higher than his opponent, whereas Wright was well beaten.
Even when Wright has won matches recently he has sometimes got off to slow starts. He was 4-2 behind to Danny Noppert at the European Championship and 4-1 down to Gabriel Clemens earlier in that match and if you fall behind over the best of nine you will have your work cut out to bring it back. Bunting on the other hand is often a very fast starter and if he gets out of the blocks here and gets Wright under pressure he might well find the task at hand gets easier quite quickly.
Tips
Back S.Bunting to beat P.Wright for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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