The knockout stages of the Grand Slam of Darts gets underway on Wednesday evening when the top half of the draw plays down to the quarter final stage of the competition at Wolverhampton on a night of opportunity for many players.
We have a couple of players who will be expected to go deep in the tournament taking to the stage but there are some outsiders and men who have careers to resurrect who have a huge chance to do that over the course of the week.
Luke Woodhouse vs Ricky Evans
Two of those men with a big opportunity in front of them meet in the opening match of the knockout stages when Luke Woodhouse, the Group C winner from the first stage, meets the runner-up in Group D in the form of the popular Ricky Evans.
Evans has made it quite clear that he has thought he is playing with the house money this week having won nothing to qualify for the event and he has made the most of the chance he has been given, qualifying with a match to spare and offering up the usual Evans highlight reels. Whether he can win this match through highlight moments remains to be seen because he is up against a Woodhouse who is now beginning to perform to a consistent and reliable level on the big stages and you generally have to play well to surpass that standard and therefore beat him. I would expect Woodhouse to win but we are getting into territory where he isn’t a regular at this level, especially as a favourite, and given that he is the man expected to come through this is a fairly easy game to leave alone.
Gerwyn Price vs Martin Schindler
The second match of the night sees the other two men to come out of groups C and D battling it out for a spot in the quarter final when the winner of Group D, Gerwyn Price, looks to extend his fine record in this tournament when he meets Martin Schindler.
These two have had some decent battles in the past. Schindler beat Price 10-9 at the UK Open last year and 8-5 in the final of a European Tour event the following month. Price was struggling with form and fitness around that time though and the sense is that he is a much better place with his fitness and his game. I still don’t think he is completely at ease on the big stages still but he is going well enough to think that he is likely to come through this one. Schindler shouldn’t be underestimated though. He has basically been playing knockout darts since his opening game and having beaten Stephen Bunting and then survived the sluggish pace of Alexis Toylo, the German probably has a bit of freedom he can play with. Price will be intense and he’ll give this a good go and I do think he’ll just about edge out Schindler but there is a bet that stands out to me here. That is Schindler to hit more than 4.5 180s. He hit six in nine legs against Bunting under real pressure of his tournament life at stake. He still hit two against Toylo in seven legs despite having no rhythm. That tells me Schindler is scoring well and in a match which is likely to have upwards of 15 legs, the German to hit five 180s doesn’t feel out of the equation at all. He’ll need every one of them if he is to win this one but can still get there in defeat.
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.
Luke Humphries vs Jurjen van der Velde
The problem with a tournament which has a round robin phase it is in that the opening knockout stage can throw up the odd mismatch and on paper we have one of those in the penultimate game of the evening when the world number one Luke Humphries faces the youngster Jurjen van der Velde.
Statistically, van der Velde was one of the worst qualifiers from the group stage. His three averages were 89.62, 83.83 and 87.10 and his cumulative checkout ratio of 11/42 – just over 25% – just isn’t going to cut the mustard against Humphries at any stage, let alone when the former world champion is looking on top of his game. Humphries breezed through a trickier group with three wins, a 96.6 cumulative average and a 39% checkout rate so there is a massive gulf between the pair based on what we’ve seen so far and you would imagine the Humphries numbers will only improve now that he can relax and enjoy the longer format. Bookmakers are offering the young Dutchman a 5.5 leg start which I doubt will be enough but it is close enough to the ballpark number for me to give this game a miss. I expect a huge Humphries win but no prices or lines really tempt me in.
Chris Dobey vs Michael Smith
The most interesting match of the night is the closing contest which sees Chris Dobey looking to make the quarter finals of the tournament when he takes on a player who has been all of the way to the title in it in Michael Smith.
This has been the sort of redemption starter for Smith after a horrendous few months of injury problems and a chronic loss of form and you can see just by looking at him when he is playing how big an event this is for him. With that in mind, with the extra pressure he has put on himself, to come out of Group A ahead of Nathan Aspinall is to his credit. Dobey had a much smoother path through. He dropped three legs in his group but it lacked the depth that the Smith one did. The numbers Dobey posted in his first two matches were solid enough but they were horrendous in his final one. Some of that might have been down to the knowledge that he was already through but form isn’t a tap and it isn’t automatically a certainty that he’ll build on an 81.79 average and a 24% checkout ratio straight back to the numbers he was posting. The overall numbers of Smith haven’t looked great in this tournament but his scoring numbers don’t look too bad and if that horror show on his doubles in his last game comes back to haunt Dobey, who has made it clear he thinks his finishing has let him down in big events in the past, then Smith is a runner in this one. I would expect the best performance of the tournament from Smith here for a couple of reasons, firstly he has come out of the group and can play with a bit more freedom as a result, especially as an outsider, and also because of the extended format. I get why Dobey is a favourite but I’m not sure this is a 1/3 vs 11/4 match so at the prices I think Smith is worth a chance against an uncomfortable favourite.
Tips
Back M.Schindler – Over 4.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Betway
Back M.Smith to beat C.Dobey for a 2/10 stake at 3.75 with Sky Bet
