The run of TV darts tournaments to close off the year gets underway on Friday night when the 24 qualified and invited players head to Amsterdam for the World Series of Darts Finals, a quirky event which gives a fair few of the lesser lights the chance to mix it with the big boys.
Jonny Clayton won this tournament a year ago in what was the middle of his fantastic year and he’ll be looking to make a successful title defence against a field which has a weaker feel to it after the entire World Series was able to take place this season.
Recent Winners
2021 – Jonny Clayton
2020 – Gerwyn Price
2019 – Michael van Gerwen
2018 – James Wade
2017 – Michael van Gerwen
2016 – Michael van Gerwen
2015 – Michael van Gerwen
The Format
We are back to normal in terms of the field this week. The leading lights from the entire World Series tour are here along with one or two who have qualified through different routes. We are left with 24 players going at it for the title – eight seeds and 16 unseeded players. The 16 unseeded players meet over the best of 11 on Friday evening with the winners going through to face a seed in the second round over the same format on Saturday evening. The tournament concludes on Sunday with the best of 19 quarter finals before the semi-finals and final over the best of 21 legs.
Seeds
The eight seeds this week are simply the top eight from the World Series Order of Merit across the events which have taken place in countries such as Denmark, USA, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand. Dimitri Van den Bergh is therefore the number one seed with Gerwyn Price the number two seed. World Championship finalist Michael Smith was the third best player in terms of money won over the regular events with Michael van Gerwen in fourth. The other four players who make it straight into the second round are the defending champion Jonny Clayton, James Wade, Joe Cullen and Gary Anderson.
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Unseeded Players
The unseeded players are made up of the eight invited players who showed enough on the World Series scene without making the top eight in the Order of Merit, as well as eight qualifiers that came through a tournament for PDC card holders. The invited players are headed by the world champion Peter Wright who had to miss the Australia and New Zealand leg of the campaign because of health issues. Damon Heta and Simon Whitlock are in as World Cup champions while Dirk van Duijvenbode caught the eye in the Netherlands. Fallon Sherrock, Leonard Gates, Gordon Mathers and Haupai Puha are the others while the qualifiers are headed by the UK Open champion Danny Noppert, Dave Chisnall and Vincent van der Voort with the other five being Matt Campbell, Ryan Joyce, Jamie Hughes, Devon Petersen and Danny Baggish.
Betting
Dirk van Duijvenbode was a finalist in the Dutch Darts Masters and back in his homeland he looks to have a draw which can allow him to push to go one better. In Haupai Puha he has one of the weaker unseeded players in the draw and then Gary Anderson is probably the weakest of the seeds so a quarter final spot shouldn’t be beyond him even allowing for the fact that the opening two rounds are the best of 11 legs.
He might well face Van Den Bergh for a spot of revenge in the quarter final but we shouldn’t remember van Duijvenbode is going to have a lot of crowd support this week which might help. There is no guarantee that last eight clash will happen anyway because we often see seeds dumped out in the second round by players who have had the benefit of a match on the stage. Sunday could be tricky for van Duijvenbode but when he’s on it he’s a handful for everyone and with home advantage on his side I’ll pay to see how close he can go this weekend.
Tips
Back D.van Duijvenbode to win World Series of Darts Finals (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 17.00 with Sky Bet (1/2 1-2)
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