A week of dramatic darts ends in Dublin on Saturday evening with the World Grand Prix final everybody wanted to see as the top two players in the world go head to head at the CityWest Hotel for the title and the hefty first prize.
Michael van Gerwen meets Gary Anderson over the best of nine sets in a repeat of last year’s Premier League final and everything suggests it should be a cracking encounter.
Michael van Gerwen
The world number one has continued his amazing form of 2016 in this tournament with some outrageous spells of darts and averages that have broken the normality meter for a double start event. While everything is going smoothly though the Dutchman will know this was the case 12 months ago and then he was beaten in the final by Robert Thornton.
Although he has played brilliant darts this week he has been pushed in three of the four rounds with Steve Beaton pushing him to a decider in the first round while Simon Whitlock and Dave Chisnall brought the best out of him in the quarter final and semi-final respectively.
Gary Anderson
It has taken him a while but the world champion has finally made it to a first World Grand Prix final and he has done it very impressively apart from a wobble in his quarter final match against Kim Huybrechts. Either side of that he has looked like the man who won the world title and the signs are that he hasn’t finished yet.
Anderson has made it through to this final surrendering just three sets despite facing the likes of Kyle Anderson, Huybrechts and Raymond Barneveld along the way and having taken a month off after all the World Series touring that he did he looks back to his fluent best. He loves facing Michael van Gerwen too which sets this up nicely.
Head to Head
The two men have already met 35 times in their career with van Gerwen holding a 21-13 lead with one draw in the Premier League earlier this year but in recent times their battles are much less one-sided.
Anderson had won their last two prior to defeat in the Champions League semi-final a fortnight ago although how much we should take from that is open to debate given that Anderson looked rusty after a month away from darts throughout that tournament.
Betting
I’m anticipating a really good final here. These two have been the best two players in the tournament by a long way this week and if both bring their best stuff to the oche then I’m expecting fireworks and plenty of them.
If there is one man who can beat Michael van Gerwen in his current form it is Gary Anderson. I’m not totally sure of the reason but something about the Dutchman tends to bring the best game out of the world champion and Anderson has gone on record as saying he likes playing his Dutch rival.
Both men are on great form and I don’t see this one being won easily by either man. It is likely to come down to a crucial missed double here or there or needing an extra dart to start and guessing which way those fine margins will go isn’t for me. Instead I’ll go with over 7.5 sets and sit back and enjoy what should be a classic.
Tips
Back Over 7.5 sets for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with Paddy Power
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