The second day of action at the Players Championship Finals sees the second and third round of the tournament being played out at Butlins in Minehead on Saturday as we determine the identity of the eight players who will compete on the last day.
The second round of the tournament will be played over the best of 11 legs in the afternoon ahead of the best of 19 third round matches in the evening. Time restrictions will stop us from previewing the evening action but we can look at the afternoon here.
Main Stage
We start with an absolute crackerjack of a match as Gary Anderson takes on Dimitri Van den Bergh in a clash between two heavy hitters who will be eyeing up a much deeper run than a second round exit this weekend. Damon Heta will be second onto the stage when he goes up against the German player Kevin Doets. Gerwyn Price is up quite early in the afternoon when he takes on Kim Huybrechts before Michael van Gerwen continues his title defence when he faces the former European champion Ross Smith. Another great game comes along in the fifth match of the afternoon as Dave Chisnall faces Chris Dobey with the last two matches of the session on the main stage seeing Luke Humphries going up against Radek Szaganski and Jermaine Wattimena meeting Richard Veenstra.
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Stage Two
We also start out on Stage Two with a cracking match as Stephen Bunting faces the Dutch youngster Gian van Veen. Another good one follows them when Ryan Searle meets Ricardo Pietreczko. Matt Campbell performed something of a Houdini act in the opening round and he takes on Mario Vandenbogaerde before Maik Kuivenhoven meets Brendan Dolan. Rob Cross is a surprise feature over on Stage Two on Saturday afternoon. He takes on Luke Woodhouse before Josh Rock faces Gabriel Clemens. Ryan Joyce goes up against Joe Cullen and then the final two matches sees Jonny Clayton facing Niels Zonneveld and James Wade meeting Steve Lennon.
Betting
I’m not a fan of betting on these best of 11s and we saw why on Friday when a couple of shambolic legs on doubles by Jim Williams cost me dearly with a bet and so I’m largely going to keep my powder dry in this second round and wait for the better formats later in the weekend. There is one bet which I can’t ignore though and that comes in the form of the Belgian player Mario Vandenbogaerde to beat Matt Campbell.
Campbell largely fell over the line and had to rely on an opponent who shied away from the finish line in the first round. The Canadian came into this event with just four wins in his last nine matches and didn’t look particularly great on Friday. Vandenbogaerde made the last 16 of the last Players Championship tournament which started with an emphatic 6-0 win over Martin Schindler. He has beaten Campbell twice this year, one of which was on a European Tour stage similar to the one they’ll play on here. I think the even money on the Belgian is just too big.
Tips
Back M.Vandenbogaerde to beat M.Campbell for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
