The opening round of The Masters will be played out on one session of action in Milton Keynes on Friday evening when the 16 lower ranked players will battle it out for the right to take on a seeded player in the second round on Saturday.
That means we will have to wait until Saturday to see the newly crowned world champion Peter Wright, world number one Gerwyn Price and Michael van Gerwen in action but the quality on show on Friday should still be good even if the format is only the best of 11 legs.
First Four Matches
We begin the tournament with two of the finest from the continent on show when Krzysztof Ratajski takes on Gabriel Clemens for the right to meet Michael Smith in the next round. When they are done Dave Chisnall and Stephen Bunting will oppose each other with both of them looking for a morale boosting win which would set up a last 16 clash with James Wade. The third match of the night will decide the opponent for Gerwyn Price on Saturday when Ryan Searle takes on Mervyn King before we reach the halfway mark of the evening with Rob Cross facing Brendan Dolan with Jose de Sousa awaiting the winner.
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Later Four Matches
The second half of the evening gets up and running with the highest ranked player on show on Friday in action as Dimitri Van den Bergh takes on Ian White for the right to have a crack at the defending champion Jonny Clayton on Saturday. Once they are done Gary Anderson will find out his last 16 opponent when Joe Cullen takes on Daryl Gurney before the penultimate match of the night sees Dirk van Duijvenbode goes up against Simon Whitlock to determine Peter Wright’s opponent on Saturday. The final match of the night sees Luke Humphries taking on Devon Petersen with Michael van Gerwen waiting for the winner.
Betting
Regular readers will know that I’m not a fan of getting massively involved in these first to six races in these big TV events so I’m going to keep my betting to a minimum until the format extends on Saturday. There is one bet that I like over the course of the evening though and that is on one of my outright bets Daryl Gurney to take care of Joe Cullen. I’ve already bigged up Gurney on the outright preview and don’t really need to elaborate too much on that.
Cullen just flatters to deceive on TV a little too much for my liking. If you go back to the World Matchplay last year he has only won four knockout matches in five events. Three of those were at the European Championship where he beat Ted Evetts, William Borland and Mensur Suljovic with 90.11 the highest averaged he faced in those three matches, and then at the World Championship he beat Jim Williams from 2-1 down before losing to Martijn Kleermaker, neither of whom averaged 90 either. Basically, since that Matchplay, if you play well on TV against Cullen you’ve beaten him and with Gurney coming to the fore again I think he’s decent value at odds against for an opening night punt.
Tips
Back D.Gurney to beat J.Cullen for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back him here:
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