2020 European Championship Final Tips and Preview

The 2020 European Championship final has a different look to it this year. There have only been four qualifying events played and the first of those was back in ‘normal time’, the last weekend of February. It was the first of thirteen planned tournaments but the Covid pandemic meant that no more where played until late September. It means we have players who have qualified by winning just two matches and we have five debutantes.

Winner of last weekends International Darts Open, Joe Cullen, is the number 1 seed while world number 1 Michael van Gerwen, is the fifth seed and world champion, Peter Wright, is only seeded 21.

The format is straight knockout with the number one seed playing the thirty second seed and so on. The first round is best of 11 legs, second round and quart finals are best of 19 with the semi-finals and final best of 21.

Line Up depends on Covid Tests

As usual the line up is subject to passing Covid 19 tests and I am sure their will be a few players on standby with a bag packed just in case. Glen Durrant has already withdrawn as he is still isolating. Amazingly he travelled to Germany last week, while clearly displaying symptoms, only to be stopped at the German airport and returned home. If players are being that lackadaisical about things, we will have more problems.

This week venue is again in Germany, the König Pilsener Arena in Oberhausen, and not in its intended venue in Dortmund. A restricted crowd will be allowed.

These are the four quarters with their form in the last three qualifying events. That form is more relevant having all been played very recently, in Germany, with small crowds.

2020 European Championship Final: First Quarter

Joe Cullen, fresh from his win last week is top seed and he will face William O’Connor, who qualifies thanks to Glen Durrants withdrawal. Cullen won eight of his last ten matches and is something of a euro tour specialist. A large part of his career earnings has come from euro tour events and Sundays win was his second European tour title and they account for half of his senior PDC titles.

Nathan Aspinall is the eighth seed and he faces debutant, Maik Kuivenhoven, whose run to the quarter final in the European Darts Grand Prix was enough for him to qualify. Aspinall has hit some pretty ordinary form, winning four of his last seven matches and not scoring as heavily as he can do.

Machine Needs Consistency

James Wade is the ninth seed, and he has won five of his last eight matches. That is decent form, but it is the nature of his defeats that catch the eye. When he’s good, he’s good but when he is bad, he is really bad. He just doesn’t have the consistency to repeat his 2018 title win. It also means he is defending £100000. That means a round one or two exit would threaten to drop him out of the top 16, depending on what others do., so he will be playing under pressure. He faces Steve Lennon in round one. The Irishman isn’t in great form but Wade is prone to throwing in a very poor game on a regular basis.

 Jamie Hughes and Dave Chisnall are the remaining two players in the quarter and neither have shown anything to suggest they can have a long run this week. Chisnall continues to have matches were he just can’t hit a double and Hughes is in the same boat.

Cullen would look to have a good chance to win this quarter.

Second Quarter

Devon Petersen is the top seed in this quarter, thanks to him winning the German Darts Championship last month. He has been in good form for much of the season and it finally all came together that weekend. The only things that worry me are that he has only played two matches since then, beating Harry Ward in the European Grand Prix before losing 2-6 to Gerwyn Price.

His big 180 hitting deserted him that night and to my eye, he had reverted to throwing himself at the board along with the dart. He had dialled that problem out this year and his form went through the roof. He will needed to have worked on that if he is to return to top form. Peterson has an easy first round match vs. Andy Hamilton so we will find out then.

MVG Struggles Continue

Michael van Gerwen is the other big seed in the quarter. He remains in poor form despite winning nine of his last twelve matches. He finally had a match with a ton plus average last weekend, a 102 when beating Wade 6-3. We had money on Wade of course. Across his other four matches he averaged 89.5. His doubling can be atrocious at worse and average at best. He has failed to get beyond the second round for the last two years, and he was in much better form then. He faces Labanauskas in the first round which should be winnable, but he will have to play at a slow pace, and it is not a given that he can win.

Defending Champion, Rob Cross, is another big-name player to be struggling for form. He isn’t the player he was a couple of years ago and while he has a very good tournament record (RU/QF/W), he, like Chisnall and Wade, is prone to throwing in a really poor performance at any time. That makes putting a good run together very hard. He faces the very dangerous Dutch debutant, Martijn Kleermaker, in the first round, but at least he has a recent 6-1 win over him to draw on.

Kleermaker A Dark Horse

The final pair are Merv King and Ian White. King had a good run in the German Darts Championship last month, reaching the semi-final but not much since. He has failed to get out of the first round for the last three years. Ian White was the number one seed last year, the twenty first seed this year. He reached the semi-final of the European Darts Grand Prix two weeks ago but not a lot else. He has failed to get beyond the second round in this event in seven appearances and his record in TV majors is poor.

If Devon Petersen has practiced well and stopped lurching at the board, he can win the quarter. Kleermaker is the dark horse.

2020 European Championship Final: Third Quarter

The best player in the world on recent form, Gerwyn Price, comes into this having won just one of his last four euro tour matches. He won the very first event, the Belgian Darts Championship, back in February but since that, just one match won. Of course outside of the Euro tour he has won the World Grand Prix and players championships 17 & 18. His record in ranked TV majors in the last three years shows three quarter finals, two semi-finals, three runners up spots and three titles. He is the man for the big occasions and reached the semi-final last year. Price faces the out of form Kim Huybrechts in the first round which is a nice pipe opener.

In form Mensur Suljovic is the seventh seed. His most recent form on the euro tour is good with seven wins from ten matches and two semi-finals. He lost both to MVG and it must be said that while his form has improved, it looks like he gets tight in the bigger matches.

Superchin On Losing Run

Mensur will face an out of form Daryl Gurney in the first round. Not an easy first round match but Superchin has lost his last three euro tour matches in a row and having not played in the Belgian Darts Championship, he qualified for this with just two matches won. He shows flashes of form but find it hard to carry that through one match never mind a tournament. The 180 hitting has deserted him which means he isn’t pressurising opponents in the way he can. Gurney has played in four European Championships and either gone out in the first round or made the semi-final. With form figures of 1/SF/1/SF, it looks like another first round exit is likely.

Krzysztof Ratajski is the tenth seed and while he is in good form, he is struggling to get any big runs going. He hasn’t had much luck with some of the draws, running into form players more often than not. His scoring remains very strong. He had the highest average last week at 101, the third highest two weeks ago at 97 and the seventh best in the German Darts Championship last month with 98.

His tournament record shows two first round defeats and while his stage form is yet to match his floor form, he must still be considered as possible winner. Ratajski faces the struggling Steve West and he is defending quarter finalist money from 2018 and he is in danger of dropping out of the top 50.

Group Of Death

The remaining two players in this group of death are Peter Wright and Gabriel Clemens. Wright declined to play in the last two euro tour events due to concerns about travelling. He also had the luxury of knowing he had already qualified. This is a ranking major and one Wright has never reached a final in.

He can’t really afford to skip the majors if he has any hope of becoming the world number one, so he will be packing the car and driving to the venue. That’s a seven hour trip via the Chunnel and if he is worried about mixing with people, a long time to spend coup up in a car. His wife has been struggling with her health this year which is one reason for the reluctance to travel. I am not 100% convinced he really wants to be here.

Clemens Regaining Form

Clemens has been showing signs of a return to form after a poor spell of low scoring and losing matches. His scoring has improved over his last four matches but he only won two of them. He is another debutant but at least he is on home soil. It may be asking too much of him to have a big run, but he is a big talent and a very dangerous opponent.

This really is the quarter of death and whomever wins it, must have a great chance to winning the whole thing. Ratajski once again finds himself in a shit draw which is a shame. Price will have to make a winning start and that part of the draw has been kind to him. I am not sure Wrights head is in the right place with his reluctance to travel. Suljovic has reached backed to back semi-finals in the last two weeks and is one of the form horses in the field.

Price has to be fancied to get to the quarter final along with Suljovic or Ratajski.

Fourth Quarter

Another very tough looking quarter. It may lack any of the really big names but everyone in it is dangerous. The top seed is European Darts Grand Prix winner, Jose De Sousa. He backed that win up with a second-round loss to Max Hopp and those two will meet in the second round if they win their first round matches. De Sousa is a big talent but still something of an unknown quantity in majors. Well, not unknown, just not very successful. In PDC ranked majors he has played eight matches and won two.

De Sousa faces Jeffery de Zwaan in the first round. De Zwaan is very talented but still on the come back from shoulder surgery earlier this year. He actually only won one match in qualifying for this event, beating Kim Huybrechts in the Belgian Darts Championship in February, before his surgery. He hasn’t played much this year and is hard to fancy.

Clayton Playing Well

Jonny Clayton has been in good form when we have seen him. He was runner up to Devon Petersen in the German Darts Championship at the end of last month. He also showed some good from in the Summer Series, but he hadn’t qualified for the last two euro tour events and it is hard to say just where is form is.

Clayton plays Max Hopp in the first round. Hopp is the home crowd favourite and depending on beer intake they can be very vocal and unsporting to Hopp’s opponents. Hopp is coming back after missing a lot of tournaments due to illness and he was looking sharper last weekend. He beat Jelle Klassen and Jose de Sousa before losing to another good performance by Ross Smith. He is defending semi-final money from 2018.

Michael Smith is the eighth seed and he showed a bit of form at the weekend, reaching the semi-final where he played poorly, averaging 89.9 and losing 3-7 to Joe Cullen. He has all the talent in the world but a lack of confidence, especially in the bigger matches. The mental scarring of so many important doubles missed is a huge problem for him. Michael Smith may not even be the best Smith this week.

Smith vs Smith

Michael Smith faces Ross Smith in the first round. Ross Smith has been showing some good form recently and that allowed him to have a good run last weekend, reaching the quarter final and only just losing out to eventual winner, Joe Cullen 4-6. He was the better player in that match, but he just got a bit tight at the business end and Cullen’s experience was enough to get the job done.

Smudger Smith beat Gerwyn Price and Max Hoop and won his first-round match with a 112 average. He needs more good runs in tournaments to build his confidence because when he gets that he will be a very dangerous player. It would be far from a surprise to the Smith going forward here to be Ross, not Michael.

Dutch Challengers

The final pair in the quarter are the two up and coming Dutch players, Danny Noppert and Dirk van Duijvenbode. Both have shown good recent form. Noppert reached the quarter final last week and the semi-final in the German Darts Championship, so his euro tour form is won six from eight. What bothers me is that his standards drop as he gets closer to the big prize. There might be some confidence issues there.

Van Duijvenbode doesn’t seem to have that problem. He was runner up in the recent World Grand Prix and swiftly took the next two weeks off, having already won enough money to qualify for these finals having reached the semi-final of the Belgian Darts Championship in February. He is on the verge of breaking into the worlds top 50 but on this years form he is better than that. Perhaps not having played for three weeks isn’t a good idea, but he is not a full time pro and will need to take a lot of time off work between now and the end of the year.

De Zwaan Lacks Form

With De Sousa unproven on TV, Michael Smith lacking confidence, De Zwaan lacking form and fitness, you have to fancy someone like Van Duivenbode, Ross Smith, Hopp or Clayton to come through this lot.

Van Duijvenbode has shown great improvement in form this year. From winning back his tour card in January he has reached a players championship semi-final, a euro tour semi-final and a major final. His confidence, self-belief and experience levels have all improved greatly and he seems to have his head screwed on the right way, second time round. He could be the one to get through with Ross Smith a dark horse.

We have had two ranking TV majors since the arrival of Covid 19. The world Grand Prix was won by an out of form Dimitri van den Bergh at long odds. The other, the World Grand Prix, was won by Gerwyn Price, who also won the non-ranking World Series of Darts.

This is the first major to be played in front of a crowd, albeit a small one. Will that bring MVG back into the frame? Perhaps, but he has just lost two finals in the same country and with the same small crowd. Van Gerwen remains the favourite but surely there are better bets that the struggling world number 1.

2020 European Championship Final: Ante Post Selections

2020 European Championship Final Tip: 1 point Joe Cullen to win the first quarter @ 5.50 with Hills, Betfair, Paddy Power

Euro Championship Final Tip: 2 points Gerwyn price to win the European Championship @ 6.00 with Betfred, Betfair

2020 European Championship Final: 0.5 point e/w Devon Petersen to win the European Championship @ 17.00 with Betfair, Boylesports

2020 European Championship Final: 0.5 point e/w Dirk van Duijvenbode to win the European Championship @ 67.00 generally available

The first round starts tomorrow afternoon on ITV4 in the UK for a marathon six hour session. All matches will be previewed on the TXODDS app tomorrow.

-JamesPunt