The second round of the World Matchplay comes to a close inside the Winter Gardens in Blackpool on Wednesday evening when the bottom half of the draw play down to the quarter final stage of the competition.
The draw is starting to open right up and even though the format has increased slightly from the first round, there is nothing to suggest that won’t continue to happen over the course of what looks like another decent night of arrers.
Andrew Gilding vs Dirk van Duijvenbode
The opening match of the night offers up the chance for two men who came into the tournament unseeded to move into the quarter final when the former UK Open champion Andrew Gilding goes up against Dirk van Duijvenbode.
Both men had good wins in their opening effort in the competition. Gilding saw off a Damon Heta who played well whereas van Duijvenbode got the better of a Rob Cross who faded the longer the match went on. It will be interesting to see how this one goes. Van Duijvenbode might feel as though the match is in his hands with his scoring power but Gilding hit 10 180s in that first round clash with Heta and if he scores as consistently as that then his more reliable temperament and ability under pressure would certainly give Gilding every chance here. The fact that it is such a big opportunity for both makes me think that this will be a tight game. The 7/4 on Gilding is extremely tempting but at a slightly lower price I’m happier taking Gilding to hit five or more 180s. You wouldn’t think he would win if he doesn’t score well but there is a chance he hits five maximums but still doesn’t get the job done.
Chris Dobey vs Gerwyn Price
The second match of the evening is probably the pick of the matches in terms of the world rankings as it is the only clash which pits two seeded players against each other when Chris Dobey takes on Gerwyn Price for a quarter final spot.
These two are no strangers to facing each other, largely because they have just completed a Premier League campaign which both featured in so there shouldn’t be any surprises during the course of this match. Price is in a rich vein of form right now and he looks a worthy favourite despite Dobey beating him in the World Championship. I’m just not convinced by the Dobey doubling to think that he can repeat that success here. Price feels like the right price for this one and the Dobey scoring is enough to put me off the handicaps. I was going to look at the Dobey 180s here but a 7.5 line is a little too high for me to get involved with so with all that in mind I’ll leave this match alone.
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Luke Littler vs Jermaine Wattimena
All of the attention will be on the third match of the night as the world champion Luke Littler looks to make it into the World Matchplay quarter finals for the first time when he goes up against a Jermaine Wattimena who he has already handed out a few beatings to in his career.
These two met in the Grand Slam last season when Littler won 16-2 having won 11 legs on the spin from 5-2 and then he won 10-4 when the pair met at the UK Open earlier in the year and you need to dig really really deep to find any evidence that suggests another big beating isn’t on the horizon. Only two players had a lower winning average than the Dutchman in the first round and that doesn’t really bode well when you consider that Littler put in one of the highest averages this stage has ever seen on Sunday night. There is little to believe that Littler won’t pull away here. There is nothing in the Wattimena scoring that is consistent enough to live with Littler and his finishing is going to be under so much pressure. You can get around 4/6 on Littler to cover a 4.5 leg handicap here which involves winning 11-6 or better but if you use the Bet365 bet builder option you can bump that up to 5/6 if you include Littler over 4.5 180s. Over a similar format against Wattimena in the UK Open, Littler hit eight 180s and he averages 0.46 180s per leg on the circuit this season so even if he wins this 11-0 he would only need to perform to that average to bring in five 180s. Wattimena will be good for a couple of legs to give Littler the time to get those five 180s should he need it. The other bet I like in this match is for Jermaine Wattimena to average over 94.5 for the night. In that UK Open loss earlier in the year he averaged 101.11 and I regularly point out that Littler hits so many four visit legs that his opponent doesn’t always get to a double to bring his average down. Wattimena has faced Littler on four occasions and he has averaged a ton in three of those matches with the exception being that best of 31 leg match at the Grand Slam. Over this distance I fancy the Dutchman to cover a 94.5 average.
Michael van Gerwen vs Josh Rock
The last match of the second round sees the beaten finalist of a year ago and three-time champion Michael van Gerwen going up against one half of the World Cup winning team in the form of Josh Rock for a spot in the last eight.
Van Gerwen was under a form cloud heading into the tournament but I always felt he was going to beat Raymond van Barneveld in the opening round. He did but there wasn’t a huge amount that was convincing about it, although the green machine should have won by a much bigger margin than the 10-6 he eventually did. The reason he didn’t was missed doubles in a lot of legs. He had a 10/32 doubles record but luckily for him Barneveld either couldn’t take advantage or he wasn’t in a position to. I would expect Rock to be and based on his 45% checkout rate in the opening round he’ll take the chances he is given. Rock wasn’t on top form against Ross Smith in a weird match where Smith could barely hit a treble segment for seven legs then all of a sudden it caught fire. Now that he has a win on the Blackpool stage I would expect Rock to kick on and really go well here. I hope he does because I’m on him outright but in terms of finding a way in for this match, other than the handicap, which I don’t really need to go down, I can’t find a true angle in that I like. With that in mind, I’ll let the outright on Rock form my interest in this one.
Tips
Back A.Gilding – Over 4.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back J.Wattimena – Over 94.5 3 dart average for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back them here:
Back L.Littler -4.5 legs & Over 4.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365 (Bet Builder tab)
