The evening session at the PDC World Darts Championship on Wednesday sees the third round continuing as another three matches in the tournament take place on the big stage inside Alexandra Palace in London.
We’ve already seen some big names comes and go in this third round and on Wednesday evening the biggest of them all comes out to play as Michael van Gerwen bids for a place in the last 16 on a tasty night of action.
Joe Cullen vs Damon Heta
The opening match of the night sees two men who have met plenty of times this year doing so once again when The Masters champion Joe Cullen looks to make the last 16 when he takes on the World Cup winner Damon Heta.
This hasn’t been the best of years for Heta on the TV stage but he didn’t let that worry him when he put in a wonderful performance against Adrian Lewis 10 days ago but he has to back that up now and as good as the Australian was in that match, Lewis was absolutely terrible. It is hard to see Cullen being that poor and he too impressed in the opening game for him when he repelled a Ricky Evans charge to win 3-1 with a 95 average and seven 180s. Cullen has beaten Heta 10-2 at the World Matchplay, 6-2 in the New Zealand Masters and 2-1 at the World Grand Prix this year and has had a good few months on TV reaching the quarter finals at the Grand Slam, World Series Finals and Players Championship Finals not to mention his win at The Masters and run to the final of the Premier League. Heta offered an encouraging display against Lewis but needs to back that up before I trust him on TV. Cullen is the better player of the two for me and I expect him to show that once again here.
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Michael van Gerwen vs Mensur Suljovic
The middle match of the night will see Michael van Gerwen looking to continue his quest to get the world title back when he takes on a Mensur Suljovic who is going to need something close to his very best to tame the Dutch star here.
Unfortunately for Suljovic, we haven’t seen anything resembling his best form for ages and even in the second round, although the score shows his 3-0 win over Mike de Decker was comfortable, a lot of that was because the Belgian only went 4/16 on doubles, a bunch of which were missed for the second set which could have changed that game. Suljovic only averaged 88.65 in that match and was only 9/30 on the doubles and he’ll need a lot more than that here. Van Gerwen laid a marker down when he thrashed Lewy Williams in the previous round. He won 3-0 with a 101.84 average in a match where in the second set in particular he looked like the unstoppable force which took him to the Players Championship Finals title. The problems for Suljovic here is he doesn’t score heavy enough to keep with van Gerwen and isn’t finishing that well to put him under pressure. The last five meetings have gone the way of MVG by scores of 11-4, 8-1, 7-1, 7-6 and 10-4 and four of those matches where in 2019 and 2020 when Suljovic was somewhere near his best. He just doesn’t get close to van Gerwen and there’s nothing to suggest that changes here. I’d be surprised if Suljovic wins a set.
Michael Smith vs Martin Schindler
The final match of the night sees the man who was beaten by Peter Wright in the title game here at the beginning of the year back on show as Michael Smith takes on the German number two Martin Schindler, who is in the third round for the first time.
Smith oozed quality in seeing off Nathan Rafferty with the minimum of fuss in the first round but he could be forgiven for thinking this is a whole new event given that it was 12 days ago when he was last on this stage. Schindler came through the second round much more recently and that was a landmark win for him as it was his first on this stage and to be fair to him it was a win over Martin Lukeman that not everyone expected. He averaged 93.04 with six 180s and while he’ll need to tidy the performance up it does show that he can be competitive here if Smith is slightly off his game. There were no signs of him being slightly off his game against Rafferty but nothing came back at him. You would imagine Schindler will offer more here but I still expect Smith to have too much. That long time between hit outs does put me off getting involved though.
Tips
Back J.Cullen to beat D.Heta for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
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Back M.van Gerwen to win 4-0 for a 3/10 stake at 2.45 with 888sport
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