The opening night of the World Cup of Darts sees the 12 seeded teams who are entering the tournament in the first round going up against an unseeded side as the battle to reach the knockout stages begins in Frankfurt.
We have to wait until the weekend for the likes of England, Netherlands, Wales and Scotland to enter the competition but there are still some decent looking pairings looking to get their campaign off to a winning start on the opening night.
First Four Matches
We begin with the new Swedish pairing of Jeffrey de Graaf and Oskar Lukasiak taking on a Spain team who have been to the World Cup before in Jose Justicia and Jesus Noguera. The second seeded team on show on Thursday are Czechia with Adam Gawlas and Karel Sedlacek looking to get the better of Bahrain before the French team who made the quarter final of this tournament 12 months ago take on Latvia. The opening third of the evening concludes with Croatia looking to justify being a seeded nation when they take on a Malaysia side who carry little expectation into the event.
Middle Four Matches
The evening continues with the Republic of Ireland getting their campaign underway with what could be a competitive match against Lithuania before we see what Poland have to offer for the first time when they go up against a fairly weak looking Norway side. USA will be the next seeded team on show. They will look to get the better of Jose de Sousa and partner who will be representing Portugal before the most intriguing match of the night takes to the stage when a troubled Belgium pair go up against the crowd favourites Singapore who include Paul Lim in their pairing once again.
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Final Four Matches
We save the best for last on Thursday evening as four of the higher seeds on show compete. Northern Ireland are the first of those. They go up against a South Africa side which doesn’t have Devon Petersen in it and therefore aren’t expected to go very well. After that the host nation Germany start their campaign when they take on New Zealand in probably the pick of the matches on the night before the 2022 winners Australia open up another tilt at the title against Japan. The last game of the opening night sees Austria facing China.
Betting
France went very well in this competition last year but I’m not convinced they get off to a winning start this time around. I’m actually a little bit surprised that Latvia are the outsiders in the match because Madars Razma should be comfortably the best player on stage and he has been showing good form of late, making the semi-final of the latest Players Championship tournament beating Josh Rock and Michael van Gerwen along the way having beaten Gerwyn Price on his way to the quarter final the day before. He also reached the semi-final of a European Tour event last month too.
France will once again have Thibault Tricole and Jacques Labre competing for them but Labre has barely won a match in the tour events he has played this season and Tricole is very in and out. Although France made the last eight last year, their averages were 83.09, 81.24, 83.43 and 80.59 and I would be surprised if the standard hasn’t risen from that. If there is a doubt it is in the Razma partner Valters Melderis who makes his debut here but in the 14 matches he has played on the Nordic Tour this season he has five times averaged over 90 and twice more averaged 89 and hit 102 140+ shots and 24 180s in those matches. If he can score solidly to leave Razma with the finishing I think the Latvians get the job done here.
Tips
Back Latvia to beat France for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
