The Grand Slam of Darts continues on Thursday night when the bottom half of the draw are back on the stage in Wolverhampton looking to make it through to the quarter finals on an evening which is absolutely loaded with talent.
It is a night where we will see the likes of the defending champion Luke Littler, rising star Josh Rock and the former winner Michael van Gerwen among others looking to book their path through to the quarter finals.
Lukas Wenig vs Niko Springer
We begin the night with two German outsiders battling it out on what could be considered the biggest match of their career. There is no doubt that is the case for Lukas Wenig and although Niko Springer has won a European Tour event, to reach the last eight of a major TV tournament would be a breakthrough in his career.
Springer is now the more decorated player of the two but Wenig has probably been on the scene for longer which makes this an interesting tie. Springer has won their last four meetings though and there is definitely a much higher ceiling in his game than there is in the Wenig one and although he has performed worse than Wenig in the group phase, that was probably down to the pressure of the situation. We saw a few examples of the longer format and the better rhythm bringing the better form out of players on Wednesday evening and I would be surprised if that doesn’t happen to Springer here. I think he wins this and I would be surprised if it is overly close. Two of those recent four wins against Wenig were 6-0 and 6-1 so there is every chance the better man runs away with this one at some point. I like Springer -1.5 legs here.
Josh Rock vs Connor Scutt
The second match of the night sees one of the better young talents to come onto the scene in the last five years in Josh Rock, going up against a Connor Scutt who will be looking to take a huge leap forward in his career over the next couple of months.
Scutt did very well to come out of a group which contained Luke Littler and Daryl Gurney. He would have been third favourite to escape that section but once he had beaten Gurney he only needed to stay upright to come through. Rock had to work much harder to make it into this stage but he had a much tougher group to overcome and the way he beat Gian van Veen in what became a straight knockout clash in his last group match certainly put a statement out that he means business here. I think we should expect Rock to win this but Scutt has shown a habit of being able to hang around so I think the safer play is to watch this and enjoy what should be a decent match rather than bet on it.
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Luke Littler vs Wessel Nijman
The third match of the night is very much the pick of the matches as the defending champion Luke Littler goes up against a foe who was very familiar to him in their Development Tour days in the form of Wessel Nijman, a man who has the scoring power to stick it to the world champion.
Littler will be a warm favourite in this match but Nijman gave as good as he got in their Development Tour days so he won’t fear the defending champion. The big question is whether he can stick it to him for long enough over a format of this length. Those battles would have been the best of nine and this is twice as long so you would have to think that Littler will get the job done but he has been guilty of some slow starts on the big stage in the last few months. If you go back to the Matchplay he was regularly 5-0 down and I’m not sure there is a way back were Nijman to get that far ahead of him. Rather than predicting a Littler win and a margin of it, the obvious bet here is to take over 11.5 180s. Both men know where the 60 is and when the first dart lands the second and third darts tend to follow at a blinding rate. This is the sort of match where you could easily see them averaging a 180 per leg and we’ll definitely get 12 legs. I like the over 11.5 maxis in this one.
Michael van Gerwen vs Danny Noppert
The closer for the last 16 is a decent way to finish the night as former World Cup teammates Michael van Gerwen and Danny Noppert do battle for the right to take on the winner of the German battle at the beginning of the night in the quarter final.
A couple of weeks ago I might well have been incredibly hot on Noppert but van Gerwen is delivering performances when he has needed to. I was on when he won the World Series of Darts Finals and he almost got me a payout in the European Championship too. He also averaged well over a ton in a straight knockout against Gary Anderson here on Tuesday night so while I’m keen to be with Noppert at the moment, he might not be the good thing he could’ve been a few months ago prior to this van Gerwen resurgence. I still want to get with Noppert though and I’ll change tact and side with his 180s. One of the reasons why I’ve been keen to be with him recently is the scoring power he has shown. He has been ploughing in 180s like they’ve been going out of fashion in recent times and odds against on over 5.5 180s feels a strong runner. In this tournament he has hit 10 180s, four against Jonny Clayton and five against Cameron Crabtree so he has been in the ballpark in two of this three games despite the pressure of the format. Now that he has time to relax I expect the 180s to fly in for the Dutchman. You would think we are going to get 16 legs or more in this one so we only need him to hit two 180s every five legs or so and that is certainly playing to his average given he has hit nine in his last 18 legs this week.
Tips
Back N.Springer (-1.5 legs) to beat L.Wenig for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Betway
Back L.Littler vs W.Nijman – Over 11.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
Back D.Noppert – Over 5.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Spreadex
