It is all about the doubles this week as 32 of the leading darts players in the world head back to Leicester for the World Grand Prix, the latest televised event as the campaign begins to ramp up towards the World Championship at the end of the year.
Jonny Clayton enjoyed himself in Leicester last year when he won another major title in what was an incredible year. He will be looking to make a successful defence of the title this week but faces a stacked field.
Recent Winners
2021 – Jonny Clayton
2020 – Gerwyn Price
2019 – Michael van Gerwen
2018 – Michael van Gerwen
2017 – Daryl Gurney
2016 – Michael van Gerwen
2015 – Robert Thornton
2014 – Michael van Gerwen
2013 – Phil Taylor
2012 – Michael van Gerwen
The Format
This is the one tournament of the year where the format is completely different. In every leg players have to hit a double to start scoring and then hit another to finish the leg. We are at set play in this tournament as well. The first round is a bunfight over the best-of-three sets while the second round and quarter finals move up to the best-of-five. It is the best-of-seven for the semi-finals and then the champion will be decided over the best-of-nine sets in the final on the Sunday. Each set throughout the tournament is the best-of-five legs and the deciding set will be settled in the fifth leg rather than a tiebreak.
Top Half
Gerwyn Price won this tournament in 2020 and so he needs a good run this week to protect his ranking money from that victory. He is the number one seed here and so he is in the top half of the draw. There are only eight seeds this week which means there are three others in this section. They are the former world champion Rob Cross, the world finalist from earlier in the year in Michael Smith and the man who won this tournament more than a decade ago in James Wade.
12 players complete the top half of the draw this week and they include The Masters champion Joe Cullen, World Cup winner Damon Heta and UK Open champion Danny Noppert. Former Premier League stars Daryl Gurney and Nathan Aspinall are in this half of the draw too as are the European aces Martin Schindler, Gabriel Clemens and Madars Razma. Andrew Gilding almost won a European Tour event last weekend and he’s in this half along with Ryan Searle, Martin Lukeman and Ross Smith.
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Bottom Half
The world champion Peter Wright is the top seed in what is a loaded bottom half of the draw it has to be said. This was the tournament which relaunched the career of Michael van Gerwen and he has now won it five times in total. He is another seed in this half of the draw. The other two are the defending champion Jonny Clayton and the former winner of the Grand Slam of Darts in the Portuguese ace Jose de Sousa.
12 unseeded players are in this half of the draw as well with the most high profile of them being a Gary Anderson who has surprisingly never got his hands on this title. Dave Chisnall has twice been to the final of this tournament without winning it while Dirk van Duijvenbode was the beaten finalist two years ago and has plenty of money to defend on his ranking as a result. Dimitri Van den Bergh has had a fine year and he’s in this half along with fellow Belgian player Kim Huybrechts. Callan Rydz, Krzysztof Ratajski, Brendan Dolan, Stephen Bunting, Adrian Lewis, Chris Dobey and Luke Humphries complete the entrants.
Betting
Dave Chisnall has an incredible record in this tournament recently and when you consider he goes into it having won the Belgian Darts Open just over a week ago it stands to reason that he is my main bet this week, particularly as I was on him when he won that tournament. His last six year record in this tournament reads SF-R2-QF-F-SF-QF and he has another final to his name in it as well. While he might not be seen as the best double hitter in the world he clearly has no problem hitting them to get underway in this tournament and that is half the battle. Even if he doesn’t get off quickly he has the scoring power to catch up in legs and with the confidence of a huge title last week behind him I think he’s a leading player this week.
In the other half of the draw Ross Smith is a player who is building some confidence on the stage of the European Tour and with this tournament synonymous with big priced finalists and shocks throughout the competition I think he could be worth a go at a big price. Smith has Andrew Gilding in the first round who hasn’t played here for seven years and that second quarter could quickly open up. This will be the second time Smith has lined up in the World Grand Prix. He averaged 91.45 in beating Joe Cullen last year before going down in a deciding set to Dave Chisnall whose record in this I’ve already highlighted. With a bit more familiarity of the format and some good form behind him, Ross Smith could give us a run for our money this week.
Tips
Back D.Chisnall to win World Grand Prix (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Boylesports (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back R.Smith to win World Grand Prix (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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