The PDC World Cup of Darts gets underway in Frankfurt on Thursday night when 24 nations get their campaign up and running, each looking for the win which would put them on the edge of securing a spot in the knockout stages.
12 matches take place over the course of the opening evening of action with each of them the best of seven legs. We have to wait until Saturday for the seeded sides to come to the party but there are some big players on show on the first night despite that.
First Four Matches
The honour of opening up the tournament this year goes to Sweden. The pairing of Jeffrey de Graaf and Oscar Lukasiak will begin their campaign against Lithuania, who are headed up by Darius Labanauskas once again. When they are done Czechia will be on the stage with Petr Krivka being a new partner for Karel Sedlacek. Chinese Taipei are their opening opponents. Boris Krcmar will lead Croatia into action in the third match of the evening when they go up against Japan in a competitive looking game before the Republic of Ireland begin their quest for the World Cup with a clash against Gibraltar.
Middle Four Matches
The bigger and better looking teams come along the longer the night goes on with Canada getting the middle four matches up and running when they take on Malaysia. USA are the seeded nation in Group I but they are strong outsiders in their first match against the popular Hong Kong pair of Man Lok Leung and Lok Yin Lee. Poland and South Africa are both headed by recognised names with Krzysztof Ratajski and Devon Petersen on duty for their countries and they meet in game seven of the night before the middle third of matches conclude with potential dark horses Belgium, represented by the World Grand Prix winner Mike De Decker and Dimitri Van den Bergh, facing Latvia for whom Madars Ramza will be doing some heavy work.
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Final Four Matches
The Netherlands are another team who are quietly fancied for a decent run this week, and why wouldn’t they be with Danny Noppert and Gian van Veen donning the orange shirt. They get their tournament started against Italy before the host nation take to the stage for the first time this week when Germany meet Portugal, which gives us a rare sighting of Jose de Sousa on the big stage. Austria start their quest to go one better than they managed a year ago when England beat them in the final. Their first opponents are Spain before we conclude the opening night of the World Cup in Group L when Finland and New Zealand get the section underway.
Betting
I’m not going to go mad in this tournament in the opening two days of it. The best of seven format is far too short for accurate predictions and I certainly wouldn’t want to be backing anything at tight prices. A look down the card gives us a number of short priced favourites but if we go to the final match of the night New Zealand look an acceptable price when they go up against Finland for the second time in as many years in this competition.
This is the same Finnish pair that lost 4-0 to New Zealand a year ago. New Zealand have switched Ben Robb for Mark Cleaver but I’m not sure that is enough to make them outsiders against a Finland side whose two combatants have lost 6-0 in two of their last four European Tour matches each. Haupai Puha is comfortably the highest ranked player on the stage and Cleaver has been around the WDF circuit for long enough to suggest that he can be a competent partner for him. At 11/10 there is enough juice in that price to ride the Kiwis on the opening night.
Tips
Back New Zealand to beat Finland for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Paddy Power
