It is trophy day at the Grand Slam of Darts where we are guaranteed a new name on the trophy as four men battle it out over two sessions of best of 31 leg matches to determine who will win the Wolverhampton title.
We have two men for whom this could be a life changing day of darts on show and two players who have won most things in the game already but not this so this promises to be a great day. The semi-finals are in the afternoon which we’ll preview here but time restrictions will stop us previewing the final sadly.
Mickey Mansell vs Martin Lukeman
The opening semi-final of the tournament will see two men who are competing in the last four of a major for themselves for the first time in their career when Mickey Mansell takes on Martin Lukeman in a clash of the outsiders.
Mansell has at least competed in a World Cup semi-final in the past but this will be completely different to that. He had a partner to get him out of any strife there and it was the best of seven legs. This is the best of 31 and he’s on his own. There is no doubting that Mansell deserves to be here though. He has played some lovely stuff in the tournament but his quarter final became a tough watch and you wonder if the nerves and pressure will get to him here. Lukeman is competing in a major semi for the first time but he has made the final of a European Tour event in the past and he has won a Players Championship event this term so of the two he has probably trended in this direction more often. His win over Rob Cross in the quarter final is very much the best bit of form either of these two have on their CV this week and I do think that is significant. I also think the fact that Lukeman gets better the longer matches goes on will be significant too and you only have to look at him to see he is full of confidence. Lukeman has scored like a dream in the knockout stages and with Mansell starting to miss key doubles I expect the Englishman to come through here. He has started slowly so far but if he gets off to a level start I expect him to pull away over this distance.
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Luke Littler vs Gary Anderson
With no disrespect to the two men in the opening semi-final, that is very much the starter ahead of the main course of the second game where the Premier League champion Luke Littler will go up against the former world champion Gary Anderson in a mouth-watering contest.
Littler played darts from the gods to absolutely wallop Jermaine Wattimena 16-2 on Saturday night and if he has that form with him then even Gary Anderson is in trouble here but backing up that sort of performance less than 24 hours later is always one of the hardest things in sport. Even then, Anderson has been there, seen it and done it against these young whippersnappers and you sense his very best form is going to come out in the not too distant future. If Gary’s floor form comes to the stage with him here then Littler could have a right tussle on his hands. Littler should really be out of this event when Mike De Decker ran into some idiots in the crowd who stopped him from dumping ‘the Nuke’ out. I fancy Anderson might complete the job here but I want to be looking at the handicaps and the 180 markets here but bookmakers have been very slow to price them up so this is a no bet match until those lines come out.
Tips
Back M.Lukeman (-2.5 legs) to beat M.Mansell for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Boylesports
Back him here:
