The second round of the World Matchplay draws to a conclusion on Wednesday evening when the big names come out to play again at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. The bottom half of the draw is in focus in this session of play and after the shocks of the opening round we look set for a Gary Anderson vs Phil Taylor semi-final later in the week but six other men will be thinking differently.
Mervyn King vs Brendan Dolan
The evening begins with two men who caused major shocks in the opening round when Mervyn King took care of James Wade while Brendan Dolan saw off Raymond Barneveld. Both men went into the tournament in questionable form so those opening wins will have been much needed.
Mervyn King played the better of the two in their opening games but I thought Dolan was really solid. It must be said that he rode his luck as Barneveld missed plenty of chances to break but five 180s and a near 60% checkout rate will win a lot of matches.
That said King was even better but he looked in a bit of agony in his interview after the game and while the warm weather is likely to help his back a slightly longer match might not and that has to be a concern.
Dolan leads the head to head between the two 4-2 and given that we know he’ll be able to cope physically unlike the doubts over King then at 13/8 the Irishman has to be the call to come through this one.
Michael Smith vs Steve Beaton
Michael Smith came through a potential banana skin against Simon Whitlock in the first round and he will see this as an excellent opportunity to make another major final. Steve Beaton took care of Jelle Klaasen in the first round and might well relish the chance to spoil another party here.
I was impressed with the professionalism of Smith in that first round match. There was no showboating but he did deliver some consistent and relentless scoring and if he can click his doubles out nicely he is going to take a bit of beating in this match.
Smith has to give up a 3.5 leg handicap here and if this was the previous best of 25 leg format I would be all over that but first to 11 is a little different and while I think he may still cover it he is nothing like as certain so I’ll sit this one out with none of the other markets appealing much.
Phil Taylor vs Mensur Suljovic
Both these men came through tight matches in the first round against really good quality opposition and as such both will be looking to repeat those performances and push on into the latter stages of the tournament.
These two have met on three previous occasions and Mensur Suljovic won’t want to be reminded that he is yet to take a leg off of Phil Taylor. I’m sure that will change here but there has been a bit of a theme in Suljovic’s matches with the big stars since he beat Gary Anderson in this tournament last year and that is he doesn’t usually get close to them.
There is no doubt that Suljovic is improving very quickly but he does come up short against the real top players. There are levels and there are levels and Taylor is a level or two above the Austrian. I expect him to put in a stronger performance than his first round here and with that Taylor can win no worse than 11-6 and cover the handicap.
Gary Anderson vs Terry Jenkins
The second round ends with the world champion Gary Anderson taking on the man who has a bit of a hex on him in the form of Terry Jenkins. It is one of the strangest recent records in darts that of the last 13 meetings between these two since 2011, Jenkins has won 12 of them to Anderson’s single win and even that win was in a deciding leg so there is clearly something that doesn’t agree with the Scot when he comes to face Jenkins.
You would say that based on their first round performances Anderson is a really good thing but he made reference to his record against Jenkins in his post-match interview so it is something that is already in his mind and that can’t be a good thing.
Jenkins was awful against Justin Pipe in the first round but you can’t look good against Pipe so I’m going to allow him that. He seems to know how to play Anderson and he raises his game accordingly. You would say 2015 was a great year for Anderson but maybe not so Jenkins so the fact Jenkins won their four meetings on the year 3-1 suggests he’ll give us a decent run for our money at 6/1 here.
Tips
Back B.Dolan to beat M.King for a 4/10 stake at 2.63 with 888sport
Back him here:
WON – Back P.Taylor (-4.5 legs) to beat M.Suljovic for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Back him here:
Back T.Jenkins to beat G.Anderson for a 2/10 stake at 7.00 with Bet365
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2016
