The first round of the World Grand Prix concludes inside the Morningside Arena in Leicester on Tuesday evening when the top half of the draw plays their opening matches of the latest TV tournament of the year.
That means we get to see the world number one and former champion Gerwyn Price for the first time this week. The support cast are pretty decent over the course of the night as well so there is much to look forward across Tuesday evening.
First Four Matches
As was the case on Monday, the four matches which don’t contain the seeded players get the night underway. We begin with a clash between Madars Razma who has had a good year and Ryan Searle who probably hasn’t hit the heights we would have expected of him in the last few months. Two men who are in good form are Ross Smith and Andrew Gilding and they meet in the second match of the night with the latter looking to back up his run to the final of the Belgian Darts Open last week.
Two men from the continent meet in the third match of the night as the UK Open champion Danny Noppert takes to the stage. The Dutch ace will be looking to make progress against Gabriel Clemens who has one win in three matches in this tournament. We head to the halfway mark of the evening with a clash between two men who have lifted TV titles this year as The Masters champion Joe Cullen goes up against the World Cup winner Damon Heta.
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Later Four Matches
The four matches which are played out in the second part of the night are the ones which involve the four seeded players. The first seed on show is the former world champion Rob Cross. He has a tasty looking battle with a man who has got his hands on this trophy in the past in Daryl Gurney. Another player who has won this title follows them onto stage when James Wade takes on a Martin Lukeman who makes his debut in the tournament here.
The world number one Gerwyn Price goes onto the stage in the penultimate match of the evening. He knows he has to win the tournament to retain any hope of staying at number one in the world rankings and he’ll face Martin Schindler for a third TV event this year having met at the World Cup and in the World Matchplay. The final match of the night looks to be the pick of the games as the world finalist Michael Smith goes up against the former Premier League finalist Nathan Aspinall.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the night with the first of them coming in that rematch of their World Matchplay meeting between Joe Cullen and Damon Heta, a match Cullen took the Australian to the cleaners in, winning 10-1, and while I don’t expect the result to be quite as emphatic here I do expect the winner to be the same. I’ve mentioned most of the year that Heta just doesn’t convince me on the biggest of stages and I’ve not changed my opinion on that. Heta is one of the best players in the world on the floor but even his form there has levelled out and he goes into this match with just two wins in his last 11 matches. Heta is playing this tournament for just the second time whereas Cullen is much more experienced in it, even if he has lost in the first round in four of his six attempts. Form, experience and head-to-head records are all on the side of Cullen and so is my money.
Later in the evening I’ll back James Wade for a routine win when he goes up against Martin Lukeman. This will be the second time these two have met on a Sky Sports stage this season as they did battle in the World Matchplay where Wade ran out a comfortable 10-4 winner. You would argue that Lukeman would have been better suited to that format than this. I say that because that is straight up leg play against a player who isn’t the heaviest scorer in the world whereas here what Wade might lack for sustained scoring power he can make up for in the starting and finishing double. I always think this format takes a go or two to get used to and when you consider this is only the second big TV tournament Lukeman has played in at this level he is still having to adjust to that as well. I suspect he might struggle here, especially when you consider he has won just eight of his last 20 outings. I fancy Wade to be too good here.
Tips
Back J.Cullen to beat D.Heta for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back J.Wade to win 2-0 for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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