The quarter finals of the Grand Slam of Darts begin on Friday night with the matches in the bottom half of the draw being played out ahead of the other two which come along on Saturday night at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton.
The first match of Friday night sees Mark Webster taking on Raymond Barneveld in a battle of former world champions. We’re up to the best of 31 legs now so this is real long course darts from here on in.
Webster has done well to get this far. He beat Keegan Brown and Michel van der Horst to second spot in his group and then produced the goods against Gary Anderson in the second round on Wednesday night. Those wins continue a bit of a resurgence that the Welshman is on and he’ll be out to continue that here.
Raymond Barneveld was also second in his group but that didn’t stop him from beating James Wade in the second round in a controversial clash. Barneveld had played well in the tournament up until then but he couldn’t get going at all and had to resort to slowing Wade down in order to get back into the match.
That worked for the big Dutchman but he’ll be looking to play more like his best stuff here and he might need to with the way Webster is playing. I like Webster in this match. He’s got no pressure on him so he can play with freedom and his scoring is consistent enough that he’ll stay close to Barneveld in most legs.
From there it comes down to doubles and the more pressure Webster gets on Barneveld the more likely he is to force an error. Webster arrived here off the back of a semi-final in the World Grand Prix and I think he’s overpriced to make another one here. He has beaten Barneveld twice in the World Championship and can do it here too.
The other match is probably the game of the night as Phil Taylor and Robert Thornton collide in a repeat of the 2013 final here. Taylor won 16-6 on that occasion and he’ll be looking for something similar here.
Thornton had to survive a strong Robbie Green comeback to book his spot in this match. That was the second relatively low key game in a row he has played after he laboured to a win over Terry Jenkins in his final group game.
Phil Taylor had his own problems with Terry Jenkins in the second round. He trailed him 4-0 at one stage but eventually came through 10-6. The Power only averaged 91 in that match though and it goes without saying that he’ll need to play better than that to come through here.
If both are on form then it is hard to see Taylor losing but both have shown their good and bad side this week so it will be interesting to see who turns up at their best. At least from a spectacle point of view Thornton isn’t someone who is beaten before he gets on the stage against Taylor so it should be competitive at some point.
Unfortunately pretty much all the lines look about right for this match. I considered a small bet on Thornton to win the match but ideally I’d get more than 7/2 on that so there isn’t anything I fancy in this second match.
Back M.Webster to beat R.Barneveld for a 4/10 stake at 2.88 with Sportingbet
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