The first round of the Grand Slam of Darts continues in the evening session on Saturday when the four groups which were not on show in the afternoon get underway with a bunch of star names taking to the oche in Wolverhampton.
That means that we have the likes of the defending champion Luke Humphries, former winner Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson, Luke Littler and a whole host of other excellent players getting their competition started in this session.
First Four Matches
We begin in Group A where the second and third seeds meet when James Wade takes on Mickey Mansell in a match the former will be expected to win and probably needs to win. When they are done Gary Anderson will start out another Grand Slam quest when he takes on the World Grand Prix semi-finalist Ryan Joyce. We are then in Group F for the third match of the evening where the UK Open champion Dimitri Van den Bergh plays Lourence Ilagan. We hit the halfway point of the evening with the 2022 winner Michael Smith starting up Group E when he faces a Mensur Suljovic who can still be awkward on his day.
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Later Four Matches
The second part of the evening will start up with the former winner Michael van Gerwen taking on Noa-Lynn van Leuven in the match which will undoubtedly have the most attention on it on the evening. When they are done Luke Littler will begin his quest for a maiden Grand Slam of Darts title when he faces the qualifier Keane Barry. Luke Humphries gets his title defence up and running in the penultimate match in the evening when he meets Rowby-John Rodriguez. The evening session concludes with the World Grand Prix winner Mike De Decker looking to keep up his positive form when he faces the European Championship finalist Jermaine Wattimena.
Betting
The evening session looks very tough in terms of finding value with the majority of the favourites looking good things but plenty short enough. If there is one who could be vulnerable though it could be Michael Smith who certainly isn’t going to enjoy the pace of the match between him and Mensur Suljovic. The Austrian doesn’t have a huge amount to lose here, not least because on paper at least this is the toughest game in the group for him.
Suljovic has won three of the last four meetings between the two players including their only match this year so it is a matchup that he clearly enjoys. The Austrian reached the quarter final of the penultimate Players Championship event of the season recently so he arrives here in decent nick against a Smith who is clearly nothing like as good or as consistent as he was around the time he won this tournament and the World Championship two years ago. There is enough to suggest that Suljovic is overpriced at 23/10 and is worth a small bet in the opening game of the event for the pair of them.
Tips
Back M.Suljovic to beat M.Smith for a 2/10 stake at 3.30 with William Hill
Back him here:
