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September13September 13, 2018

Ian ‘Diamond’ White Claims First European Tour Title Win; 2019 PDC Schedule Released

Darts fans were treated to a surprise winner last week when Ian White won his first ever PDC European Tour title at the MECC in Maastricht. In doing so, he beat another surprise package, world number 56 Ricky Evans, by winning 8-5 in the Dutch Darts Championship final.

The 48-year-old from Stoke, ranked 13th in the world, had already recorded a superb triumph over Peter Wright in the last four and went on to average a mere 89 in the final. Despite the low average, it proved to be enough as he made the most of Evans’ 13 missed doubles from 18 shots. Amazingly, White’s win was also recorded six years to the day since he reached his first European Tour final in 2012. In that match, he lost in the final of the German Darts Masters 6-3 to Adrian ‘Jackpot’ Lewis, but this time he was determined to get the win.

A recap of the MECC

Playing in his 63rd European Tour event, White began his road to the final with a 102.26 average in a 6-4 victory over Arron Monk before reaching the quarter-finals, courtesy of an outstanding 6-2 victory over Mervyn King. He then moved on to get his revenge over the two-time World Champion and fellow potter Adrian Lewis in the quarter-finals before successfully getting the better of Snakebite in the semis.

28-year-old Ricky ‘Rapid’ Evans’ brilliant run to his first PDC ranking final — his first in nearly five years — saw him record impressive victories over Jan Dekker, Steve West, William O’Connor, Joe Cullen and Ritchie Edhouse, before his meet-up with ‘Diamond’ White in the final. He also established himself as a firm crowd favourite thanks to his ‘Baby Shark’-inspired walk-on music.

Once there, both players made a strong start with White scoring first thanks to a 14-dart hold of throw. Evans responded in kind by duly hitting back with a 13-darter. From there, he grew stronger, recording the first break of the match to go 2-1 up, only for White to hit straight back with an 11-darter to level the score.

The game continued with serve for the next few legs until White’s 14-darter cracked his rival and opened up a two-leg advantage for the first time. Evans then took out a double 16 with his last dart to break throw and keep the game alive. It wasn’t to last long, however, as White immediately broke back before holding throw to move within a leg of victory, which came two legs later after he pinned tops for the title. For White, that meant that he has now won 10 PDC titles in total.

Elsewhere, William O’Connor inflicted world number one Michael van Gerwen’s first Last 32 exit in Europe in almost three years when he somehow beat the world number one 6-1.

2019 PDC schedule announced

The 2019 PDC calendar has now been published and it includes over 200 days of darts. Highlights include an expanded Darts Premier League, which now stretches to 17 nights and includes doubleheader in Rotterdam.

This year’s UK Open format has been tweaked to include 128 Tour Card Holders, 16 Challenge Tour Order of Merit Qualifiers plus 16 Rileys Amateur Qualifiers. The Rileys Qualifiers were the same route taken by current World Champion Rob Cross when he turned professional before stunning the world last January.

Prague will join the list of European Tour hosts alongside established destinations in Germany, the Netherlands, Gibraltar and Austria. Following a successful inaugural event in Copenhagen, the European Tour will be returning to Denmark for the second time. Amsterdam will also be hosting a PDC televised event for the first time.

Next year’s World Cup of Darts will take place in Hamburg, while Blackpool’s World Matchplay retains its traditional date in late July. In the autumn of 2019, the Darts Champions League and the European Championship will follow the World Grand Prix.

The Grand Slam of Darts will then be held in Wolverhampton before the Players Championship Finals in Minehead in November. Finally, the World Darts Championship will close the season out over the Christmas holidays, although no starting date has yet been announced.

January

1 (London) World Championship Final

February

1 – 3 (Milton Keynes) The Masters
7 (Newcastle) Premier League Darts Matchday 1
14 (Glasgow) Premier League Darts Matchday 2
21 (Dublin) Premier League Darts Matchday 3
28 (Exeter) Premier League Darts Matchday 4

March

1 – 3 (Minehead) UK Open
7 (Leeds) Premier League Darts Matchday 5
14 (Nottingham) Premier League Darts Matchday 6
21 (Berlin, Germany) Premier League Darts Matchday 7
22 – 24 (Leverkusen, Germany) European Tour 1
27 (Rotterdam, Netherlands) Premier League Darts Matchday 8
28 (Rotterdam, Netherlands) Premier League Darts Matchday 9
29 – 31 (Hildesheim, Germany) European Tour 2

April

4 (Belfast) Premier League Darts Matchday 10
11 (Liverpool) Premier League Darts Matchday 11
18 (Cardiff) Premier League Darts Matchday 12
20 – 22 (Munich, Germany) European Tour 3
25 (Birmingham ) Premier League Darts Matchday 13
26 – 28 (Saarbrücken, Germany) European Tour 4

May

2 (Manchester) Premier League Darts Matchday 14
3 – 5 (Graz, Austria) European Tour 5
9 (Sheffield) Premier League Darts Matchday 15
10 – 12 (Sindelfingen, Germany) European Tour 6
16 (Aberdeen) Premier League Darts Matchday 16
23 (London) Premier League Darts Play-Offs
24 – 26 (TBC, Netherlands) European Tour 7

June

6 – 9 (Hamburg, Germany) World Cup
14 – 16 (Copenhagen, Denmark) European Tour 8
28 – 30 (Prague, Czech Republic) European Tour 9

July

20 – 28 (Blackpool) World Matchplay

August

3 (Hildesheim, Germany ) Players Championship 21
4 (Hildesheim, Germany) Players Championship 22
30 – Sep 1 (Vienna, Austria) European Tour 10

September

6 – 8 (Mannheim, Germany) European Tour 11
13 – 15 (Riesa, Germany) European Tour 12
27 – 29 (Gibraltar) European Tour 13

October

6 – 12 (Dublin) World Grand Prix
19 – 20 (VENUE TBC) Champions League
24 – 27 (Göttingen, Germany) European Championship

November

1 – 3 (Amsterdam, Netherlands) World Series Finals
49 – 17 (Wolverhampton) Grand Slam of Darts
22 – 24 (Minehead) Players Championship Finals

December

TBC (London) World Championship

September6September 6, 2018

Michael van Gerwen Wins 17th Title Of The Season

By Peter FryersIn

Darts Betting Tips

Michael van Gerwen beat James ‘Lethal Biscuit’ Wilson 8-6 at the German Darts Championship final in Hildesheim over the weekend to claim his seventh victory of the European Tour and his 17th title of the season so far.

Van Gerwen, who hit a 103.56 tournament average across the weekend, raced to a 3-0 lead in the final before the Yorkshireman notched up a tidy 44 to land his first leg.

MVG no match for Wilson

After MVG’s strong start, Wilson then wired the double 16 that would have rewarded him with a break of throw. Instead, the mistake allowed a clinical Mighty Mike to step up to land duel checkouts of 118 and 154 and open up a daunting 5-1 lead. Wilson wasn’t about to roll over and he soon dragged his way back into the match by claiming the next two legs on the spin to find himself at a more respectable 3-5 deficit. The fightback wasn’t to last however, as MVG soon impressed his dominance on the game once more to move within a leg of the title at 7-3.

True to form, Wilson refused to go down without a fight and amazingly reeled off three successive legs to give world number one a serious fright. Not that it showed on Van Gerwen, however. He merely shrugged it off and finally put an end to Wilson’s resistance with an 11-dart leg to lift the German Darts Championship for a second time.

Wilson’s strong performance against MVG was even more remarkable given that his Dutch opponent had only dropped one leg in his previous four matches combined after thrashing Cristo Reyes and Martin Schindler each 6-0 and Joe Cullen 7-0 in the semi finals. Only Dave Chisnall managed to claim a single leg against Mighty Mike in their quarter final match, in which he too was shot down 6-1.

Wilson’s route to the final saw him overcome hard fought ties against Jermaine Wattimena, Jonny Clayton, Robert Thornton and Ron Meulenkamp 6-2. He then overcame the odds to drop Mensur Suljovic 7-4 to set up his first ever European Final in what was a very strong performance for the 46-year-old who last year played under the nickname “The Jamie Dodger.”

Dutch Darts Championship Betting Tips

Coming up this weekend — September 7 to September 9 — we have the Dutch Darts Championships at the MECC in Maastricht. Suitably for Holland, one of their own is the standout favourite. Michael van Gerwen can be picked up for a best price of 8/13. It’s hard to see where his main challenger will come from, especially considering he will be on his own turf with his own army of fans in full support.

The second favourite is Peter Wright at a much more attractive 5/1, although he has had a messy 2018 and any faith in him has been severely tested this year. Enjoying a much better year is Mensur Suljovic, who can be backed at 12’s. Considerging that Betway’s each-way terms for this event pay out at 1/3 of the odds for the first two places, it’s probably worthwhile looking into backing the runner-up, for which Mensur stands a great chance.

Elsewhere, James Wade can be picked up at 22/1, before Adrian Lewis’ 25/1 and Daryl Gurney’s 28’s. Other potential long shots include Dave Chisnall at 28/1, Gerwyn Price and Simon Whitlock, who are both at 66/1 with online bookmakers Betway.

August27September 6, 2018

2018 PDC Champions League Of Darts Drawing Held

By Peter FryersIn

Darts Betting Tips

Last year’s winner Mensur Suljovic

The next big PDC event on the sporting calendar is the Champions League of Darts which is set to be broadcast on the BBC on September 22 and 23. While we await betting prices — and indeed any action whatsoever this week — we give you a sneak peak as organisers have made the draw for the tournament that will be played in Brighton one month from now.

After the first two editions of the Champions League were staged in Cardiff the tournament has now relocated to the Brighton Centre to replace Brighton’s hosting of a Premier League night. Locals will now have the pleasure of seeing the PDC’s leading eight players all competing in a live televised event.

At the draw, the chairman of the PDC, Barry Hearn, talked of his pride in bringing the tourney to the South Coast and how popular the event has now become.

“The Champions League of Darts has become a hugely popular event since being introduced to the circuit two years ago. The concept of the world’s top eight players facing off over one weekend is one which works perfectly for BBC Sport, and we feel that The Brighton Centre is an ideal venue to host the Champions League of Darts. With the Premier League’s growth seeing Brighton replaced on that circuit, we remained committed to taking a televised PDC event to the south coast and we’re delighted for this to be this year’s Champions League of Darts.”

A look at the draw

The draw itself threw up some great opening ties. World number one Michael van Gerwen was naturally seeded in Group A and is joined there by recent World Matchplay winner Gary Anderson, 2017 World Grand Prix champion Daryl Gurney plus Dave Chisnall.

UK Open champion Peter Wright finds himself in Group B with world champion Rob Cross, reigning Champions League winner Mensur Suljovic and former European Championship winner Simon Whitlock.

This means that in the opening match of the 2018 event Mensur Suljovic will face-off against world champion Rob Cross, who will be making his Champions League debut. This match will lead into Peter Wright going head to head against Simon Whitlock, followed by a Gary Anderson and Daryl Gurney battle and lastly, Michael van Gerwen versus Dave Chisnall.

The round-robin phase continues in the second session on Saturday evening before play carries over into Sunday afternoon, where the top two players from each group will compete for the title in the semi-finals and final.

Champions League of Darts draw and schedule

Group A

Michael van Gerwen
Gary Anderson
Daryl Gurney
Dave Chisnall

Group B

Peter Wright
Rob Cross
Mensur Suljovic
Simon Whitlock

Saturday, 22 September (13:15 BST)

Rob Cross v Mensur Suljovic (B)
Peter Wright v Simon Whitlock (B)
Gary Anderson v Daryl Gurney (A)
Michael van Gerwen v Dave Chisnall (A)

Saturday, 22 September (18:30 BST)
There will be four matches consisting of the winners of the first group plus the two losers from both groups.

Sunday, 23 September (13:00 BST)
There will be four matches consisting of the remaining group matches, deciding on the top two qualifiers from each group.

Sunday, 23 September (18:30 BST)
Two semi-finals plus the final.