The 2023 darts season begins this weekend when The Masters takes place in the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes as the leading 24 players in the world rankings head to the Buckinghamshire venue to play in a tournament which is gaining importance.
It was certainly important for Joe Cullen last year as he won this event and then got a call up to the Premier League as a result. A similar fate could easily come the way of someone not yet guaranteed to be in that tournament this year.
Recent Winners
2022 – Joe Cullen
2021 – Jonny Clayton
2020 – Peter Wright
2019 – Michael van Gerwen
2018 – Michael van Gerwen
2017 – Michael van Gerwen
2016 – Michael van Gerwen
2015 – Michael van Gerwen
2014 – James Wade
2013 – Phil Taylor
The Format
We have the same extended event this weekend with 24 players taking to the oche rather than the 16 which was the case in the early years of this event. The first round sees the players ranked 9-24 meeting over the best of 11 legs on Friday evening with the winners progressing to face one of the top 8 in the last 16 on Saturday. The quarter finals, semi-finals and final all take place on Sunday with the last 16 and last eight being the best of 19 legs and the latter stages the best of 21 to find the winner on Sunday evening.
Top Half
The draw this week is worked out on the world rankings so the leading light in the top half of the draw is the world champion Michael Smith who will be looking to win this tournament for the first time. Three other players in the top half will be seeded through to the second round. They are ranked four, five and eight and are Gerwyn Price, Luke Humphries and the UK Open champion Danny Noppert so this is a competitive looking half of the draw.
Eight players in this half of the draw will compete on the opening night for the right to face one of those higher ranked men later in the tournament. Those eight players are World Cup winner Damon Heta, European champion Ross Smith, Nathan Aspinall, Stephen Bunting, Dirk van Duijvenbode, Krzysztof Ratajski, the defending champion Joe Cullen and the World Championship quarter finalist Chris Dobey.
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Bottom Half
The bottom half of the draw sees the players ranked two, three, six and seven seeded through to the second round. That means we won’t be seeing the Nordic Darts Masters winner from last week, Peter Wright, the World Championship finalist Michael van Gerwen, Players Championship Finals runner up Rob Cross or the former winner here Jonny Clayton until the action comes along on Saturday. Those four are class acts which could make for decent action on Sunday if they all make it through.
Eight players will battle it out on Friday night to join them in the second round. They are Ryan Searle, Dave Chisnall, who was beaten by Joe Cullen in the final here last year, James Wade who is starting to slide down the rankings, Callan Rydz, Jose de Sousa, World Championship semi-finalist Gabriel Clemens, Dimitri Van den Bergh and a Gary Anderson who needs to do something special in 2023 if he is going to remain a major force in the game.
Betting
Since the format for this tournament was extended and 24 players were invited to the event, the two winners have come from outside the top eight which suggests that having that match on the Friday night could prove significant. The flip side of that though is that there have been a couple of World Series events to start off the year so the bigger names might be a little more in sync, albeit they’ve done plenty of travelling recently.
One man who hasn’t done that is Nathan Aspinall and if the draw does open up it could very well be in his section where Danny Noppert isn’t the toughest seed he could face and Michael Smith could feel the weight of expectation of being the world champion. Aspinall finished 2022 very well with runs to the final of the World Grand Prix and the Grand Slam and he was going well at the World Championship until he butchered a few doubles against Josh Rock. That is a concern but there is only one short format match here and if he comes through that he could easily start to go deep this weekend. He’ll want a big weekend as with two major final appearances last year, a win here could force him back into the Premier League so with plenty of form and motivation within him I’ll see how far Aspinall goes here.
Tips
Back N.Aspinall to win The Masters (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Bet365 (1/2 1-2)
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