The final night of darts before Christmas sees the first round of the PDC World Championship conclude at the Alexandra Palace in London.
The last four matches of the opening round will be played out over the best of five sets and by the end of the evening we will know the identity of the 32 men who will come back after Christmas with the aim of being crowned world champion.
Wednesday evening begins with an interesting looking contest between Andrew Gilding and Gerwyn Price. The winner will take on either Adrian Lewis or Jan Dekker in the next round.
Gilding is the seeded player which is credit to him because although he’s had some success on the floor apart from his run to the semi-final of this year’s UK Open he hasn’t really featured too strongly in a televised event.
I guess it is that lack of TV run which makes him the outsider in this match. His scoring never seems to be as strong on the TV and he can miss doubles. Price on the other hand seems to save his best darts for the big stage which gives me confidence in him winning here.
Price made it to the quarter final of the World Matchplay where he beat Michael Smith and Adrian Lewis along the way and he performed with credit in the Players Championship Finals at the end of last month.
Price seems more comfortable of the two on the big stage and I think he can be the latest qualifier to see off his seeded opponent in this crazy first round.
One of the more intriguing first round matches when the draw was made was the one between Benito van de Pas and Max Hopp, arguably the two best European youngsters in the game right now.
Van de Pas has shown some decent form in 2015 but this might just be alien territory for him as he has never been a favourite in a big event like this before. We saw shades of him not being comfortable as a favourite in the Players Championship Finals.
He was a massive outsider in the last 16 of that event against James Wade and did a job on him but when it came to being a favourite in the quarter final against Daryl Gurney he couldn’t get going and duly lost.
This could just be a perfect opportunity for Max Hopp. He’s the outsider. Little is expected of him and he can play with a little more freedom and express himself much more naturally and in what looks a tight match anyway away from the odds I like that position for the German.
We’ve seen on this stage in the past just how good Hopp is and if he has his best game with him I fancy he can get the win against an under pressure van de Pas.
Adrian Lewis is up in the penultimate game of the night and he takes on the ex-BDO semi-finalist Jan Dekker. Dekker doesn’t lack for experience but he does lack for scoring power and quality and that could well be his downfall here.
All the signs are that Lewis is bang up for this. He usually performs with great credit and distinction in this tournament and I’m expecting no different from him here. This should be one way traffic but we’ve seen enough in the event already to suggest there is little point in backing big handicaps in this round.
The final match of the first round sees the fast improving Jelle Klaasen taking on a Joe Cullen who always qualifies for this event but then you rarely see him for the rest of the year.
That in itself is quite strange because on the face of it he is a heavy scorer and you don’t see him have too many mares on his doubles so it is a bit of a mystery why his game hasn’t kicked on but that is the case.
He is dangerous enough to challenge Klaasen but Klaasen has been much improved in 2015 and if he has his best darts with him he should come through this. Enough favourites have been challenged strongly to let me leave Klaasen to win without backing him but I do fancy him to do the business comfortably.
Back G.Price to beat A.Gilding for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Betfair
Back M.Hopp to beat B.van de Pas for a 4/10 stake at 2.50 with Boylesports
