Sam Hart gives us his best bets on the opening night of the World Darts Championship.
The night kicks off with a first-round match between Thibault Tricole of France and Joe Comito of Australia. Thibault is the 1/5 favourite to win this match, as he should be. Comito, though, will want a decent payday by winning this though. It is going to be tough for both of these players, as the winner has to play Luke Humphries a couple of hours later in the second round. It seems really tough on them, but the motivation may not be all there for Tricole, and I have this match to be daily edgy. That said, I think Tricole will win this, but Comito will get a set on the board, so I like the look of a 3-1 win for Thibault currently at 9/4 with Sky Bet.
Match two on the night sees Jermaine Wattimena vs Stefan Bellmont. Wattimena has had some good runs in the Worlds and has reached the last 32 on three occasions. He is currently ranked 36 in the world, with his opponent Bellmont sitting at 124. Again, Wattimena is a heavy favourite to win this, but he has ended his season really strongly and has been throwing some big scores. Jermaine Wattimena to win this 3-0 is currently 11/8 with Sky Bet, and I can see this being a comfortable victory. He is 6/4 to have the match treble, which is most 180s, the highest finish and to win the match. I have never liked these betting options, as you can tend to find sometimes one of the underdogs do pull out some outrageous finishes in the odd leg. So a 3-0 win for Wattimena will be my bet in match two.
The final match of the first round ties on the opening night is Kim Huybrechts of Belgium taking on the young Irish contender Keane Barry. It’s been a long time since Kim had a big run in this tournament. He made the quarterfinals back in 2012 but hasn’t really been up to too much since. He is a narrow favourite to win this at 8/11 with Bet365, with Keane Barry being 11/10 with the same bookmaker. There are only 11 places in the world rankings between these two, and this could easily be the game of the night. This isn’t a market I would be looking to play in this match, but it is certainly one I am looking forward to tuning into.
We can't preview the official final match of the night, which sees the returning champion Luke Humphries come out to play against the winner of the Tricole vs Comito match; however, we know Luke will be extremely short against whoever he faces. We can’t see any prices on this game yet; however, when they do come out, I will be looking at the Luke Humpries under 180’s market. It could be a quick game and can always be nervy coming out as a defending champion at a World Darts Championship. So there may be some good prices in the 180 markets in that final match of the night.