Sunday was a crazy day of darts at the World Matchplay at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool with six of the outsiders winning in the eight matches. The only favourites to avoid an upset were Gary Anderson and James Wade and that will make the four fancied runners very nervous when the first round concludes on Monday evening.
Monday night’s session of darts looks an absolute belter with two world champions, two world finalists, a world master and a world youth champion all taking to the stage trying to book their place in the second round of the tournament.
Thornton vs Brown
Robert Thornton is the seed opening up the session but it would be fibbing if we were to say he will be looking forward to it. The reason for that is he has played here on five occasions and he hasn’t come through the first round yet! In two of those matches he has been whitewashed so this clearly isn’t one of Thornton’s favourite venues.
Keegan Brown loves the big stage. We’ve already seen him beat Adrian Lewis and Raymond Barneveld in the Grand Slam and only nerves late on cost him a win over Dave Chisnall in that event too. He’s also beaten John Part at the World Championship and since then he’s won a tour event where he beat Alan Norris, Peter Wright and Adrian Lewis along the way so he can clearly play.
He made the semi-final of another tour event at the start of this month so he’s in good nick and given his big stage prowess I think he’s good value to win this despite Thornton’s win in Dusseldorf last week.
Chisnall vs Caven
One of the more eye catching matches of the third night of action sees Premier League star Dave Chisnall taking on Jamie Caven in a game which sees two players who have a nice rhythm taking each other on. Chisnall is often at his best against the quicker players but it is Caven who leads their head to head. It is hard to work out Caven’s form at the minute and I’m still not as 100% convinced by his big stage competence as I should be. That said it is a little early in the tournament to be taking big handicaps or big 180 lines so I’ll take a watching brief on this one.
Taylor vs Henderson
The defending champion returns to the scene of one of his best records and he will be widely expected to come through without any difficulty. Henderson has nothing to lose in this match and can be dangerous if he is allowed to be but this should be a routine Taylor win if he has any ambitions of defending his title.
I think the days of being comfortable on a big handicap where Taylor is concerned are behind us though and while I’m tempted with a bet on him to hit the most 180s given that he goes after a lot more these days I’ll sit this one out until we know how well Taylor is playing.
Barneveld vs Hamilton
The last match of the first round sees Raymond Barneveld taking on Andy Hamilton in what would have been a classic a couple of years ago but I’m not sure Hamilton is playing well enough to make this the match it could be.
If I could get a decent price on Barneveld -2.5 I probably would have taken it here but 3.5 looks a bit nearer the right mark and there isn’t enough in the price to tempt me in especially when this isn’t Barneveld’s best venue either. I’d be surprised if he loses but I’m happy to just watch this one as well.
Back K.Brown to beat R.Thornton for a 4/10 stake at 2.38 with Boylesports
