The opening night of the World Series of Darts Finals takes place in Amsterdam on Friday evening when the 16 players who haven’t been given a seeded spot in the draw battle it out to look to set up a date with one of those seeds on Saturday.
That means that we have to wait another 24 hours to see the likes of Michael Smith, Gerwyn Price, Peter Wright and Michael van Gerwen in action but there is still a decent amount of quality taking to the stage to entertain us on Friday.
First Four Matches
We begin the tournament with two men in good form battling it out when the recent European Tour winner Krzysztof Ratajski looks to make it through to the second round when he meets Daniel Klose, who reached the final of a Players Championship event a couple of weeks ago. When they are done Graham Usher looks for a win on the big stage when he takes on the New Zealand player Haupai Puha. Gabriel Clemens hasn’t really kicked on since reaching the semi-final of the World Championship which might make him vulnerable to William O’Connor. We reach the halfway mark in the evening with the qualifier Keegan Brown taking on Simon Whitlock.
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Later Four Matches
The second half of the evening session looks absolutely lit up and we get underway with Jonny Clayton looking to find some form when he meets the German number one Martin Schindler before the home legend Raymond van Barneveld takes to the stage to meet the former Lakeside finalist Jeff Smith. Two more Dutch players follow them onto the stage as the finalist of last year in Dirk van Duijvenbode goes up against the former UK Open champion Danny Noppert. We conclude with Damon Heta going up against the entertaining Ricky Evans to round off the action on Friday.
Betting
I’m not a massive fan of getting too involved in these best of 11 sprints but I will go with one that might be overpriced in the form of Martin Schindler to get the better of Jonny Clayton. Clayton reached the final of the World Matchplay in July but there were a couple of matches where he seriously rode his luck in that event when it came to pass that he had issues off the oche to contend with. He hasn’t won a match since that Matchplay final so I wonder if things away from the board are still taking precedent.
Martin Schindler has actually won the last two meetings between these two players so might be bringing much more confidence to the stage with him. He hasn’t gone majorly deep in an event for a while but at the same time he had a solid win over Daryl Gurney at the European Tour event last week before losing to eventual finalist Stephen Bunting. The doubling ability of Schindler does concern me but if he can get some confidence on those early he has the tools to take care of a potentially distracted, out of form Clayton.
Tips
Back M.Schindler to beat J.Clayton for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Coral
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