Day two of the World Grand Prix sees the first round completed at the Citywest Hotel in Dublin on Monday night when the remaining 16 players in the field get their campaigns underway.
As expected there were shocks on the opening day of the tournament and some big names exited almost as quickly as they entered the event. Among those departing on the first day were Stephen Bunting, Peter Wright and Raymond Barneveld.
Monday sees the likes of James Wade, Phil Taylor and the world champion Gary Anderson begin their quests for the title. They are joined by Simon Whitlock, Terry Jenkins, Mervyn King and Robert Thornton in another night stacked with talented tungsten tossers.
Even though this best of three set double start format is brutal for the favourites I don’t see many of them slipping up here. We saw a lot of 2-1 finishes on Sunday but I wouldn’t be surprised if we just the same number of one sided 2-0s on Monday.
It is hard to see any of the major players slipping up. All have opponents significantly weaker than them so as long as they don’t have any nightmares on the doubles the likes of Taylor, Wade and Anderson should breeze through.
There are a couple of closer looking matches although I still expect Ian White to come past Jamie Caven. If there is any value in an outsider on this card it could come in the form of Andrew Gilding but if I’m honest I think the prices in that match are about right.
One match I do like from a betting point of view though is the one which looks like being the closest of the night on paper between Terry Jenkins and Mervyn King. I’m not as sure it will play out as tight as it looks.
The two are 10-10 for their head to head but it is Jenkins who has won their last five meetings and I think he will win this one too. He is in excellent form at the minute having won a tour event a couple of weekends ago.
Contrast that to King who has only been past the last 16 once in a tournament since June and when he plays all the events that isn’t a good form guide for the former Lakeside finalist. A recent trend of King’s is that he has been missing a few doubles and any misses here will be very costly in this short format.
Jenkins isn’t missing doubles. He is scoring well and usually he is monotonous on tops so I think he is going to take a lot of beating in this match. At 4/5 the price on The Bulls is just about attractive enough to get involved for my only bet of the night.
Back T.Jenkins to beat M.King for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Paddy Power
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