The seeded players enter the Hungarian Darts Trophy on Saturday when the last 32 of the latest European Tour event of the season is played out across what should be two very good sessions of darts out in Budapest.
There was due to be 16 matches over the course of the day but the withdrawal of Gerwyn Price has left us a match light so there will only be 15 but we should get some really good darts to enjoy on the live streams.
Afternoon Session
The action begins with an out of form Damon Heta on show when he takes on the young Northern Irish sensation Josh Rock before our outright pick Danny Noppert takes to the stage. He has a date with Rusty-Jake Rodriguez to negotiate before Ryan Searle will look to show that he remains good enough to win titles at this level. His opening opponent is Karel Sedlacek. We then get taken to the afternoon interval by Dirk van Duijvenbode who meets Chris Dobey.
The blockbuster match of the last 32 brings us out of the interval in the afternoon session and it sees Michael Smith taking on Daryl Gurney before Krzysztof Ratajski goes up against Ryan Meikle. Dimitri Van den Bergh is then on show in the penultimate match of the afternoon as he faces William O’Connor for a place on finals day on Sunday. The afternoon session concludes with another good looking match between Jonny Clayton and Dave Chisnall.
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Evening Session
We would usually have eight matches in the evening session as well but the Price withdrawal takes us down to seven on this occasion. The action gets underway with a couple of cracking matches as Rob Cross goes up against Jeffrey de Zwaan before Jose de Sousa meets Raymond van Barneveld. We then go to the break with the man who has dominated the European Tour scene this season in Luke Humphries. He takes on the Croatian player Boris Krcmar.
We come out of the break and conclude the day with four really good looking matches on paper beginning with Joe Cullen who goes up against Martin Lukeman. Peter Wright then meets the former world finalist Jim Williams before the winner of the last two TV tournaments go at it when the World Matchplay champion Michael van Gerwen takes on the World Cup winner Simon Whitlock. The action concludes with Nathan Aspinall meeting Stephen Bunting.
Betting
I’ve mentioned a few times on these previews that Damon Heta doesn’t really convince me on the big stages and he has now lost his last five matches coming into this tournament so could be there for the taking when he meets the talented Josh Rock. While Heta hasn’t achieved what he should have done on the stage, which is very much a concern, another doubt over him here would be how fresh he is as he was playing on the other side of the world as recently as last weekend.
Rock has already had a match this weekend to blow off and rust which might have built up over the last six weeks ago while all the big guns were down under and I think that could be significant too. The play on Friday was largely average fayre but that wasn’t the case with Rock who played pretty well in taking care of Darius Labanauskas. I think he could be one to watch over the next six months and he can show why with a headline win here.
Tips
Back J.Rock to beat D.Heta for a 3/10 stake at 2.38 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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