The second round of the World Matchplay concludes on Wednesday night with no fewer than four world finalists in action on a bumper night of darts. Tuesday night was good for the blog with two comfortable winners and hopefully we can find some more on Wednesday.
There are some real big names on show in this session so the quality is likely to be high and anyone not at their best will be shown the door. There are four solid favourites in the session but the underdogs have barked strongly so far so nothing can be guaranteed.
Chisnall vs Brown
Interestingly the session begins with what I would class as the best match of the night. These two played out a cracking quarter final at the Grand Slam last year and both played very well in the first round this year. Chisnall was involved in an epic with Jamie Caven which went to the tie breaker while Brown maintained Robert Thornton’s awful record in this tournament.
As good as this match will be I think the bookmakers have their line about right. When the match was confirmed I thought about the 180s but Chisnall’s 13 in the first round has sent that line soaring and in 30 legs in Wolverhampton last year there were only 17 so we might need this to go all the way to cover a 13.5 line here. With that in mind I’ll sit this one out.
Wade vs Dolan
The former champion Wade takes on the man who hit the historic 9 dart finish with the double start against him in Dublin in the form of Brendan Dolan. Dolan’s record against Wade isn’t the best but when he does beat him it does tend to be on TV so that is something that will encourage him.
One thing Dolan will have to do is improve on his first round effort. He has never got past this stage of the tournament and it could be that he doesn’t have the ability to maintain his top level for 25 legs whereas we know that Wade does and can sustain his form for a lot longer. He was very good in beating Kyle Anderson with an average over 100 in the first round.
There were 15pts in the averages between the two in the first round and that is a significant gap for Dolan to bridge so I expect Wade to win but I’m not a fan of taking a 4.5 leg line because Wade will need three unanswered breaks of throw were he to throw second and even allowing for the average difference and level in form that is a lot even over this distance so this is another I will sit out.
Taylor vs Hamilton
Two former practice partners meet in the penultimate match of the round when Phil Taylor takes on Andy Hamilton for a place in the quarter final. Taylor was on easy street in the first round against a John Henderson whose mind was probably elsewhere and who never really got going. Hamilton played very well in beating Barneveld but it didn’t look like Barneveld was particularly interested either.
Taylor was never threatened by Henderson but it will be a concern how many doubles he missed in that match and he might not get away with so many misses here. I still think he’ll win but that would put me off backing him on a big handicap especially as Hamilton looked confident and was right up for it against Barneveld. What impressed me most about Hamilton was when the pressure came along he met it head on which isn’t always easy to do when you’ve not won big matches for a while.
All in all there is enough in there to let me take a watching brief here. Hopefully long term Hamilton tests Taylor go we get a good idea how he copes when the pressure is on as it will be in the latter stages of the event.
Anderson vs Suljovic
The final match of the second round sees the Triple Crown chasing Gary Anderson in action against Mensur Suljovic. These two meet for the first time in this match and I’m not expecting it to be a pleasant experience for the Austrian. Putting it quite simply he isn’t going to keep up with Anderson in the scoring department over this distance and I’m not convinced he will outfinish him either.
In fact Suljovic might still be wondering how he is still here having never at any point of his match averaging 90 against Terry Jenkins and yet somehow winning 11-9. He’s going to have to be consistently in the 95 region and probably higher in periods if he is to keep this one close and I just don’t see it.
Anderson still has mares on the doubles but not to the extent that he used to and generally his misses come in one leg and then he puts that behind him and cracks on and gets the job done. Anderson is capable of averaging well over a ton over 20 legs. I’m not sure Suljovic is so I’ll take Anderson’s relentless scoring to be too much here.
Back G.Anderson (-5.5 legs) to beat M.Suljovic for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
