We have reached week four of the Premier League Darts 2025 season and as ever on UK Open weekend the action comes from the Westpoint Arena in Exeter where more points and another £10,000 is there to be won for the eight competitors.
Nathan Aspinall won in this building a year ago and he will be looking to back that up this time around and improve his standings but the other seven players will all be eyeing a pre-UK Open confidence boost of their own.
Michael van Gerwen vs Rob Cross
We open the evening with two men who have made a very different start to the season when Michael van Gerwen looks to continue his fine opening to the campaign when he meets Rob Cross who has just one win from his four outings so far.
You wouldn’t say that Cross has been terrible in this competition so far but he does have the worst checkout percentage from his matches and that is going to need to improve if he wants to pick up points here in Exeter. He might have his work cut out anyway because Michael van Gerwen looks like he has a point to prove, although he will undoubtedly be frustrated at having won all three of his quarter finals so far this term but then lost all three semi-finals. He’ll be keen to go deeper here. Cross has won five of the last six meetings between the two and might well be good value at 6/4 but I can’t back him while he is missing so many doubles. I’ll leave this one alone.
Gerwyn Price vs Luke Humphries
The pick of the quarter finals in Exeter on Thursday evening is the second one where the top two in the table meet for the second week in succession when Gerwyn Price goes up against the current table topper Luke Humphries.
This should be a belter of a match because Price will be confident having won in Dublin last week, beating Humphries 6-3 in the process but Humphries himself should be buoyant having won the opening week of the campaign and made the final in the second one where only an idiot constantly whistling potentially denied him the night win. Price looks a really confident animal right now but Humphries is in decent touch himself and this one feels like a match to enjoy rather than risk a bet on, although if I had to pick then at the prices and based on his win last week I would probably side with the Welshman but not with a great degree of confidence.
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Chris Dobey vs Nathan Aspinall
The penultimate quarter final of the evening sees the two outsiders going into the tournament meeting for a spot in the semi-final when Chris Dobey takes on the finalist from last week in the form of Nathan Aspinall.
I always think when the five players outside the big three meet someone who isn’t in that elite trio there is more pressure on them because points won’t come easily against the big boys so these are opportunities that they have to take and it will be interesting to see how that impacts on the dynamic of this match. These two men are the two below the fourth spot so the winner here will give themselves a chance to end the match in the coveted top four so this should be competitive and if it is then I expect the 180s to flow. Aspinall hit 14 of them last week and really had a scoring groove on while Dobey is scoring strongly too. In their respective quarter finals last week these two hit nine 180s and generally when they meet the maximums flow which is my angle in here. In their Players Championship Finals meeting last year there were 10 180s in seven legs and in their three Premier League meetings two season ago there were nine 180s in 10 legs, six in 10 and eight in 10. There is nothing to suggest we won’t get 10 legs here so the over 6.5 180s appeals in this one.
Stephen Bunting vs Luke Littler
The last of the quarter finals on the night sees the defending champion Luke Littler going up against the man who won the Bahrain Masters and made the final of the Dutch Darts Masters last month in Stephen Bunting.
Bunting hasn’t kicked off the Premier League season how he would have wanted to. He is the last player in the field to win a match and will need to revoke memories of his semi-final win over Littler in the Netherlands a month ago to inspire him to try and win here. Littler won in Scotland two weeks ago but he has lost in the quarter finals in the other two weeks. He was visibly annoyed at losing to Gerwyn Price again last week so you would imagine he will come out all guns blazing here. To be fair to Littler, he has lost his quarter finals with averages of 113.91 and 99.78 but it is actually Bunting who is my focus here. I’ve mentioned plenty of times how the opponent of Littler is inflated because the world champion is so good that he doesn’t allow the man he is playing to miss a bunch of doubles. That is perfect for Bunting because his scoring power is strong. You can get 10/11 on Bunting to average over 96.5. Littler has played five matches in the Premier League this season and the only time the opponent averaged under that was in the week two final where Luke Humphries was put off by an idiot whistling throughout. Bunting averaged 100.49 in defeat to Humphries last week and in two TV meetings with Littler has averaged 99.55 and 100.10. I’ll take him to average above 96.5 here.
Night 4 Betting
There is always a market for winning the night and having won Week 2 I think Luke Littler is the man to be on here. In the top half of the draw we have two of the three weekly winners so far in Gerwyn Price and Luke Humphries as well as Michael van Gerwen who is the other member of the big three alongside Humphries and Littler. That opens up the other half of the draw massively, especially when you consider that three of the current bottom four in the table are housed in it.
Littler is a 1/3 favourite to beat Stephen Bunting in the first round and while nothing is guaranteed in this format, he is the shortest price of any of the quarter finalists so you would imagine he will progress to a semi-final against Chris Dobey or Nathan Aspinall. They are currently 8.45 and 11.36 points behind Littler on the tournament average respectively so Littler would be a huge favourite for that and then in the final he’ll be tough to stop, especially if the crowd play up again. Littler has played much better than his record this season so far suggests and at 7/4 he feels a solid play.
Tips
Back C.Dobey vs N.Aspinall – Over 6.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.25 with Coral
Back S.Bunting – Over 96.5 3 dart average vs L.Littler for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
Back L.Littler to win Night 4 for a 2/10 stake at 2.75 with Boylesports
Back him here:
