The opening day of the Players Championship Finals sees all 64 men in the field in action across the two stages that are being used at the Butlin’s Resort in Minehead on Friday with spots in the second round at stake.
Usually we get two sessions of play but with the PDC keen to have everything wrapped up before the England game kicks off we have one bumper session where the matches just keep on coming on both stages.
Main Stage
The former world champion Rob Cross gets the action underway on the main stage when he goes up against the relatively unknown Dutch player Kevin Doets before The Masters winner Joe Cullen takes to the stage. He will face off against Rowby-John Rodriguez. The number one seed Damon Heta then gets his campaign underway when he meets Ricardo Pietreczko before James Wade takes on Mensur Suljovic in one of the better early matches on the day. The new kid on the block, Josh Rock, will then begin his bid for a first TV title when he meets Cameron Menzies with Gian van Veen going up against the European champion Ross Smith and World Grand Prix and Grand Slam finalist Nathan Aspinall taking on Martijn Kleermaker to take us to the halfway point on the main stage.
The second half of a really busy session of action on the main stage begins with Dimitri Van den Bergh looking for a bit of form when he takes on Martin Lukeman. Danny Noppert has good vibes at this venue having won the UK Open here earlier in the year and he’ll open his bid for the Minehead double against Simon Whitlock. Michael Smith will then appear for the first time since finally landing a TV title at the Grand Slam last week when he faces Ritchie Edhouse with the world number one Gerwyn Price following them. He meets Ryan Joyce before Kim Huybrechts faces Raymond van Barneveld in potentially the tie of the round. The last two matches on the main stage sees Michael van Gerwen facing Ryan Meikle and Luke Humphries taking on Nathan Rafferty.
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Stage Two
There are even more matches over on Stage Two on Friday with two likeable sorts getting the action underway when Andrew Gilding faces Ricky Evans. Callan Rydz follows them when he meets Madars Razma before the 2018 champion looks to make it into the second round against Keegan Brown. Scott Williams has broken through this season and he faces Alan Soutar who looked good at the Grand Slam last week before Brendan Dolan and Jermaine Wattimena go at it. The former world finalist Jim Williams will then look to make progress before Krzysztof Ratajski takes on William O’Connor. Adrian Lewis then faces Keane Barry before we reach the halfway mark on this stage with Jose de Sousa playing Danny Jansen.
The number four seed Dirk van Duijvenbode gets the second part of the day underway when he takes on Mickey Mansell before the last two beaten finalists in this tournament do battle when Ryan Searle faces Mervyn King. The former world champion Stephen Bunting then takes to this stage to take on Jamie Hughes before Chris Dobey and Geert Nentjes meet. There is an all-European battle as Martin Schindler takes on Vincent van der Voort before Jonny Clayton makes a surprise appearance in this part of the resort to face John O’Shea. Star attractions are on show in the final three matches on this board too as Steve Beaton plays Matt Campbell, Gabriel Clemens meets Gary Anderson and Dave Chisnall plays Niels Zonneveld.
Betting
I’m rarely one to get too involved in these ITV tournaments when the format is the best of 11 and there isn’t a huge amount that I like the look of anyway but there is one that I’m happy to embark on and it sees Vincent van der Voort playing Martin Schindler. I was keen to oppose Schindler whatever happened here and while I’d have liked him to be under the big stage microscope, I want to get against him because the way his Grand Slam campaign ended is going to have left its mark and isn’t going to be natural to get over.
That is something that van der Voort can feast on. He is still a decent player in his own right and can get in front of Schindler and power away but in reality all he needs to do is stay close because when Schindler comes to getting into a position to win and then over the line he is going to have all sorts of doubts after the many missed doubles against Rob Cross in the Grand Slam. These two men have met five times and the Dutchman has won the lot. Two of those meetings came on the European Tour this year so they are relevant and at a decent price I’ll take van der Voort to make it 6-0 on his side of their head-to-head.
Tips
Back V.van der Voort to beat M.Schindler for a 3/10 stake at 2.38 with Coral
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