The opening night of the World Grand Prix sees the top half of the draw playing their first round matches inside the Mattioli Arena in Leicester on a night where some star names take to the oche to get their campaign underway.
This is the night that Luke Humphries gets his defence of the title underway along with the likes of Jonny Clayton, Rob Cross and Nathan Aspinall looking to use their seeding to good effect. Luke Littler is another star on show.
First Four Matches
We open the tournament with two players who will be eyeing up a decent week here as Josh Rock goes in search of a first match win in the event when he takes on Ryan Joyce in a match which has banana skin written all over it. When they are done the man who used to carry home hopes in this event before it got switched looks to rediscover past glories in the event when Brendan Dolan takes on the recent Swiss Darts Trophy winner Martin Schindler. The former champion Jonny Clayton will take to the stage for the third match of the night when he takes on Ritchie Edhouse before we get to the halfway point of the evening with Nathan Aspinall playing Ryan Searle.
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Later Four Matches
There is no doubt that the quality is likely to improve throughout the evening and the second half of the session gets underway with the former finalist Raymond van Barneveld going up against the tournament debutant Ricardo Pietreczko before the world champion Luke Humphries gets his title defence up and running with a stinker of a first round draw against Stephen Bunting. Speaking of stinking draws, Rob Cross certainly has one when he meets the other high profile debutant on the night in the form of Luke Littler before we close out the opening evening of the tournament with Gian van Veen taking on Ross Smith.
Betting
I’ll go for a couple of bets over the course of the night with the first of them being a double which I wouldn’t normally offer up but I do think the two players in question are comfortably clear of their opponents even in this format of the game. That is Raymond van Barneveld and Jonny Clayton. Clayton is a former winner of this tournament and the finishing is generally the strength of his game. He doesn’t block double 16 when he throws for it and should get off pretty strongly. Edhouse has done well on the floor this year but hasn’t made the final day of his last five European Tour events and he’s on debut here so Clayton looks a good thing. Barneveld has caught fire in recent weeks. He made the last eight in the Swiss Darts Trophy where he beat Pietreczko along the way and was a semi-finalist on the floor last week too. The German is suffering with wrist problems and is on debut here so everything points to Barneveld there for a double which pays just over 5/4 and looks a solid thing.
The other bet that I like is for Rob Cross to beat Luke Littler. It has to be said Cross has a bang ordinary record in this tournament but at least he has played in it many times unlike Littler who is competing in it for the first time and his ability to rescue legs with his scoring power will be negated here because some of the scoring is taken away with the doubling. In seven attempts at this tournament Cross has only won two matches but he seems to relentlessly get beaten in deciding sets so with a bit more luck things could have gone much more in his favour. I always like the experience of the event over a debutant in this and while I don’t think there is any doubt that Littler is the better player of the two currently, as the 7-1 head to head record would suggest, I think the format is enough of a leveller for Cross to appeal at 7/4.
Tips
Back J.Clayton to beat R.Edhouse x R.Barneveld to beat R.Pietreczko for a 3/10 stake at 2.26 with 888sport
Back it here:
Back R.Cross to beat L.Littler for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Boylesports
Back him here:
