PDC World Championship Day 1 Review Day 2 Preview

Posted: 14.12.18 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

A great night at the Palace to get the Worlds underway and another good one in store today!

What an opening night! The first game was a fine example of the bright side of PDC darts. An Indian qualifier, who would have looked at home in a Bollywood movie as well as on the biggest darts stage in the World, took on Dutch rising star Jeffrey de Zwaan.

Nitin Kumar did well. It is so difficult for players like Kumar to get the relentless high-quality games that players in a lot of mainland and European countries now take for granted. Players like Kyle Anderson and more recently Cody Harris as well as of course our sponsored player Diogo, have had to make the ultimate sacrifice and leave their families behind and move to the UK to get the quality of practice partners and tournaments that they need to compete at the top level.

Ultimately Jeffrey was happy to meet the Kumar and he used it as a warm up for his game later on in the evening V defending Champion Rob Cross. We wrote off Cross as did a lot of punters and pundits but he proved us all wrong. It was a terrific performance from Cross so well done to him and well done to de Zwaan who was sent packing with a 106 average!

Photo PDC/Lawrence Lustig

The previously mentioned Cody Harris was rewarded for his upheaval in coming to the UK with a fine 3:2 win over the German Martin Schindler. Schindler is a great scalp to have on your list of top players that you have beaten and Cody will now play Jamie Lewis.

Trina Gulliver, the 10 x Ladies World Champion was drafted in to the pundit team on Sky Sports to mainly discuss the Lisa Ashton match v Jan Dekker. Trina, unlike Lisa, got off to a nervous shaky start but got into it as the night went on.

The one complaint I would have is that Sky/PDC ( I genuinely can’t tell them apart when it comes to the darts coverage) made it sound like they had invented Ladies darts! I would have loved Trina to have got hold of Dave when he and his colleagues were going on about how this was going to boost ladies darts and how they were inspiring lots of young girls to take up darts and said:

“Listen mush, we have been playing Ladies darts at the Lakeside since 2001 so enough already”!

Or something like that.

It was a good game. Ashton went off like a train and easily won the first set. Dekker stuck at it though and Lisa seemed to run out of gas and Jan won 3:1. Whatever the thoughts regarding the Ladies taking part with regard to tokenism I personally feel it has to be a positive move from the PDC and darts in general. Time will tell if other things develop from it.

Friday’s Games

It is a double header today:

Afternoon Session (1230)
Michael Barnard 1/3 v Jose De Sousa 3/1 (R1)
Alan Tabern 1/1 v Raymond Smith 9/10 (R1)
Paul Nicholson 1/3 v Kevin Burness 14/5 (R1)
Jamie Lewis 1/2 v Cody Harris 2/1 (R2)

Evening Session (1900)
Danny Noppert 3/10 v Royden Lam 3/1 (R1)
Simon Stevenson 13/10 v Ted Evetts 13/18  (R1)
Chris Dobey v 3/10 Boris Koltsov 100/30  (R1)

Gary Anderson v Nicholson/Burness (R2) Odds to follow when 1st round game has been completed

Michael Barnard has had an amazing season, especially as he hasn’t even got a Tour Card so I fancy him to beat De Sousa. Alan Tabern, The Tabster, what a legend. I have seen Tabern play on the floor and he can be brilliant. On stage it is a different story though. He will have his work cut out today v Raymond Smith.

Pundit/Player or is it Player/Pundit, Paul Nicholson takes on Kevin Burness with the formidable prize of a game v Anderson later tonight.

Jamie Lewis, who had an amazing run to the semi finals last year takes on Cody Harris, this should be a cracker to finish off the afternoon session!

In the evening there are potentially a batch of 3:2’s but don’t ask which way. Noppie has enough to beat Royden, but Lam won’t be slaughtered, he is a good player.  Stevenson v Evetts, hmmm, tough one and Dobey v Kolstov. Chris is the favourite with the bookies but Boris is a very handy player and can cause an upset. The last game of the night will most likely be Anderson v Nicholson and it is safe to say Nico can get back to fully focus on his punditry by the close of play tonight.

Double Dabble

Over 4.5 sets in:

Tabern v Smith and Stevenson v Evett 6/1