Sam Hart gives us his best bets on day two of the World Darts Championship.
Afternoon Session
Day two on the Monday of the World Darts Championships sees the first afternoon and evening sessions of the tournament.
The match I am focusing on in the afternoon session which begins at 12:40pm on Monday is the match between Luke Woodhouse and Lourence Ilagan. Luke is currently 3/10 with Ladbrokes to win the match, but I can see the first big upset coming here. Ilagan, his opponent, hasn’t been in the best of form in recent months, but he hasn’t disgraced himself. His last match on the PDC tour was a 5-3 loss to Luke Littler, but there are signs that he can play good darts. He pulled off a shock in the first round of this tournament last year when he beat Rowby John Rodriguez 3-2 in their opening match, when Rowby was a similar price to Woodhouse in this affair. Woodhouse has been winning matches recently, but in my opinion, against opponents he should be comfortably beating. His record in the World Championship suggests he will either go out here or in the second round. The winner of this will play Mike De Decker who is showing the best of his game now, so neither of these have too much hope in the second round. I am not saying that Ilagan will win this comfortably. I think this could be a tight affair, but even looking at some of the set handicap markets, you may be able to get a nice price on Ilagan in this first round tie.
James Wade plays in the second round tie that is played that afternoon against the winner of Wattimena vs Bellmont. It is likely to be a match against Wattimena and, even though we don’t have prices in this match, I would be looking at the over 3.5 maybe even the over 4.5 sets in this one, if they were to play.
Evening Session
The evening session is headlined by a Gerwyn Price second round match, but prior to that we have three first round ties. The match I want to focus on here is Cameron Menzies vs Leonard Gates. This should be going the way of Menzies, who has shown some impressive darts towards the back end of the year. He can get frustrated with himself and lose focus, and in terms of big 180 hitters, he isn’t known to be on them. His opponent, USA’s Leonard Gates, has been playing a fair bit on the seniors tour but again, isn't known to be a big 180 hitter. I think the 15/8 with Sky Bet for under 7 180’s is tempting as I feel Menzies could end up coasting through this 3-0 and the scoring being fairly low.
Gerwyn Price will be playing his second round match on Monday night, and even though he hasn’t played his best dart at all this year, I expect him to make his way through to round two.
If I was putting a treble together for the day though, I would have Lourence Ilagan +1.5 sets against Woodhouse, Under 7 180’s between Menzies and Gates and then to finish the treble I think Neil Zonneveld will come through his match on Monday evening against Robert Owen. That currently pays just over 8.5/1 with Sky Bet.
Thanks for tuning into this Paddy Power World Darts Championship Preview, do look out for the rest of the previews of some of the great sport we have coming up this week, and as always do remember to gamble responsibly.