The first round of the PDC World Darts Championship continues with two more exciting sessions of play at Alexandra Palace on Sunday, the final day with two sessions before Christmas.
We’re starting to see some big names fall foul of a short format and the intense pressure this tournament creates and the likes of Andy Hamilton, Stephen Bunting and Raymond Barneveld, all of who are in action on Day 4 of the event, will be hoping they don’t follow the likes of Kim Huybrechts and Ian White out of the competition almost before it has begun.
Sunday’s afternoon session begins with what should be a competitive preliminary match between Michael Rastovits and Rob Szabo. They meet for the right to face Jamie Caven later in the afternoon. Both men have been on a big stage before which should allow the spectacle to be decent.
The main action gets going with Andy Hamilton in a tricky looking match against Joe Murnan. Murnan really burst onto the scene at the beginning of the year when he won a Challenge Tour event and followed that up with a pro tour event.
Since then it has to be said he hasn’t been brilliant but he’s been in all the major events this year which should stand him in good stead for this match.
If Murnan has done nothing for a while Hamilton has the same thing on his 2015 description. He’s been very poor this year with just two quarter finals in the entire year. For a man who enters every tournament that just highlights where his struggles lie.
A return to the big stage might just inspire Hamilton enough to get a confidence boosting win here but on what he’s shown in 2015 I can’t go near him at odds on. We’ve seen a couple of low in confidence players bite the dust already to competent opponents and at 13/10 Murnan could well add his name to the list of winning outsiders so far.
The next game sees one of the rising stars of 2015 begin his quest for a title in the form of Mensur Suljovic. A year or two back any talk of Suljovic launching a title bid would have been laughed off as comedy but that is no longer the case given the brilliance he has shown in the second half of 2015 particularly in the big events.
Suljovic takes on the young Dutch player Jermaine Wattimena. Wattimena has performed with credit on the pro tour and if he settles from the off he could keep this competitive purely because Suljovic isn’t used to being such an emphatic favourite and the pressures that brings and it is that pressure which makes this a no bet match.
Moving into the evening session and a blast from the past returns to the big stage as Paul Lim takes place in the preliminary round match. He faces the Russian qualifier Aleksandr Oreshkin for the right to face Mervyn King. Nothing in that match interests me and I doubt I’ll take King against either given his regular back issues.
Stephen Bunting has a right old banana skin on his hands in his first round match. He faces Jyhan Artut who is well known to the big stage and who has beaten Wayne Mardle on this one before as well as pushed Gary Anderson all the way in another.
Artut is dangerous if you let him be and with Bunting having had a worrying trend of missing key doubles this year you could easily see a scenario where the German becomes a very awkward opponent for The Bullet.
Bunting hasn’t won many matches on the big stage recently and the pressure is all on him in this match but Artut is capable especially if he’s taken to the trenches so to speak and I think he’s worth backing to provide a massive upset.
Raymond Barneveld takes on his fellow Dutchman in the other match on the night. Dirk van Duijvenbode is the man looking to end Barney’s tournament before it has started but unless Barney has the mother of all shockers this should be fairly one way traffic. I see no value anywhere though.
Back J.Murnan to beat A.Hamilton for a 4/10 stake at 2.30 with Paddy Power
Back J.Artut to beat S.Bunting for a 3/10 stake at 4.33 with Boylesports
