There are just two nights of darts left in the PDC World Championship before Christmas as the first round begins to draw to a close. The penultimate night of the first round takes place on Tuesday with four intriguing matches.
The preliminary round matches have all been and gone now so we have four first round matches on the night with Dave Chisnall and Terry Jenkins the headline names taking to the stage.
The night begins with a tight looking match between Dean Winstanley and Ronny Huybrechts where the winner will progress to take on Peter Wright in the second round after Christmas.
A quick look down the 2015 results of these two players and it is hard to see anything resembling good form. Winstanley has been awful all year and Ronny Huybrechts hasn’t been a whole lot better it has to be said.
Winstanley’s best efforts on the pro tour this year have been a couple of runs to the last 16 of events which isn’t brilliant for a player of his quality while Huybrechts made one quarter final and that is it. In his favour he beat Stephen Bunting and James Wade in that tournament which shows he can still get it done but I wouldn’t really want to back either here.
This just looks like one of those nervy matches where someone might well fall over the line in an error ridden match and I can’t possibly risk my money on either.
I’m happy to get stuck into the second match of the night where another bang out of form player will be in action when Wes Newton takes on the man who beat him on this stage 12 months ago in Cristo Reyes.
If Winstanley and Huybrechts’ form was bad I’ve no word to describe Wesley’s 2015 year. Only once all year has he made the last 16 in any professional tournament and that is awful for a man who has two Premier League campaigns to his record.
Barring something quite outrageous this is going to be Newton’s last hurrah on the big stage but all the signs are it will be a short lived one. Reyes is a consistent scorer and when he’s right on his game he is a real heavy scorer as highlighted by the two 9 dart finishes he has achieved on the tour in 2015.
Reyes has enough big stage experience to be comfortable up there now and his power scoring can intimidate Wes into another defeat.
In the next game Dave Chisnall takes on the exciting young talent that is Rowby-John Rodriguez in one of the matches of the tournament so far and one I’m very much looking forward to.
Chisnall is considered by many as a dark horse in this tournament and if he wasn’t in the section he is in I would have strongly supported that claim but he can still do some damage to some big names before he exits.
Rodriguez will be hoping to do exactly that here. We know he’s not scared of the big names or the big stages and he’s a gutsy player who seems to have the big scores or the big finishes at just the right time and he could be an annoyance to Chisnall especially if the Austrian can put enough pressure on Chisnall’s doubles and force him to miss.
I can see this being one of those 3-2 either way matches and if that is the case we’re going to see stacks of 180s. Rowby-John peppers the 60 when the first dart is right and we need no introduction to Chisnall’s 180 exploits so there is a good chance we will get 10 maximums in this match before the outcome of it is decided.
The final match of the night sees Terry Jenkins up against Darin Young of the USA. Young is no stranger to these shores and often qualifies to play in this tournament but he’s never really got any better and Jenkins should see him off without too many problems.
Jenkins has missed a few doubles recently not least against Alan Norris in Minehead a few weeks ago and if that trend continues Young could hang around longer than he should but I would expect a Jenkins win. How emphatic it will be depends on his doubling and I’m not prepared to guess what that will be like.
Back C.Reyes to beat W.Newton for a 6/10 stake at 1.80 with Sportingbet
Back D.Chisnall vs R-J.Rodriguez – Over 9.5 180s for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Sportingbet
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