2021 PDC Masters Preview and Tips by James Punt

This year’s 2021 PDC Masters has a different look. Obviously, it will be played behind closed doors with no crowd, but it also features the top 24 ranked players, rather than the usual 16. The top 8 players in the world rankings are automatically placed into the second round, with the remaining 16 meeting in the first round. The format is best of 11 legs for the first round, best of 19 for the second round and quarter finals, with the semi-finals and final best of 21.

The tournament remains non-ranking and as such it has never carried true major status despite it being a televised event. That meant that some players never treated it more than just a bit of an early season pipe opener. There was £5000 just for losing the first round and the chance of the £50000 first prize.

In its eight year history only four players have won the title, Phil Taylor, James Wade, Michael van Gerwen (2015-2019) and Peter Wright last year. Clearly MVG takes it seriously and he will be doubly determined to get his name back on the trophy in 2021.

Most Important Masters Ever

There is one other incentive this year. The PDC have announced nine players for this year’s Premier League, with one more player to be announced after the conclusion of this event. That means we have 15 players in the 2021 PDC Masters field eyeing up a potential Premier League entry. This year’s Masters is the most important in its history and I doubt there will be any players just turning up for a nice hassle free cheque.

With the field being made up of the top ranked 24 players in the world there are no easy matches and no easy draws, but we will take a look at the draw by quarter and see the likely paths to the final.

2021 PDC Masters: First Quarter

Traditionally this has been Michael van Gerwen’s quarter as the world number 1 is the top seed. Not this year. That honour goes to Gerwen Price. The new World Champion and World number1 will face the winner of the Joe Cullen vs. Stephen Bunting match.

Bunting and Cullen both enjoyed confidence boosting performances at the World Championship. Bunting reached the semi-finals, his best result as a PDC player and while Cullen only won two matches, that will have felt like winning the title to him, after years of first match defeats. I fancy both players to have a good 2021 season and it is a shame that the two have to meet in the first round, and for the winner to then face the best player in the world. It is also a bad draw for Price, who will face a player in good form and above all, feeling confident.

The other top 8 seed in the quarter is Gary Anderson. The runner up in the World Championship has a better draw than Price as he faces either the out of confidence, Michael Smith or the out of form Adrian Lewis. Michael Smith was the runner up here last year, fluffing his lines again to lose in the deciding leg of the final. 2020 was another year of frustration for Bully Boy and he has slipped from fourth to ninth in the world rankings.

Anderson is determined to make 2021 a big success and he has a decent chance to move on to the quarter final and a possible re-match with his nemesis, Gerwyn Price. Not an easy prospect for either player.

PDC Masters: Second Quarter

The two seeded players here are the long term out of form Rob Cross and a more recently out of form Nathan Aspinall. Remarkably, Cross remains the world ranked number four. This in no way reflects on his form of the last 12 months. He lost his opening match at the World Championship, lost in the second round of the Players Championship and won two group matches at the Grand Slam before losing his first knockout match. His scoring is still pretty good much of the time, but his confidence has gone, and he finds winning much more difficult these days.

Cross will play the winner of the Glen Durrant vs. Merv King first round match and you have to fancy one of them to make the quarter final. Duzza had a very polarised 2020. The first half was good and culminated in him winning the Premier League. Very shortly after that he caught Covid-19 and his form collapsed. It was a night and day difference and clearly the loss of form could be pinned on his illness and how long it took him to get healthy again. There were small signs at the World Championships that he was getting closer to his better form, but despite reaching the fourth round, his scoring wasn’t impressive. It is likely that he will improve in the coming months, but he lost a lot of matches post Covid and his confidence took as big a knock as his health.

King Confident

Mervyn King on the other hand is in good form, playing as well as he has for a long time and full of confidence. He was runner up in the Players Championship finals at the end of November, taking MVG to a deciding leg. He reached the fourth round at the World Championship, losing to eventual Champion Gerwyn Price, but he was one of just five players to average above 100 at Ally Pally. Winning tournaments is not something King has done since 2018 and he is another player who has never won a PDC televised tournament. However, he must be considered given his form.

Nathan Aspinall’s form has dipped, he hasn’t dropped off the radar completely, but a bit like Durrant, his season went downhill after the Premier League, where he was runner up. Across the Grand Slam, Players Championship and World Championship he won five of his nine matches but never looked at his best.

Aspinall will face the winner of the Ian White vs. Mensur Suljovic match. White has remained in the world top 16 (12th) and he is always there or thereabouts. That said his stage form is someway short of his floor form and his record in this event is dire, having played six and lost six.

Mensur Suljovic has taken a major drop down the rankings and is now outside the top 20 (21st). He had a very low profile last year opting out of some events, not qualifying for others and he has played two matches in the last three months. He had worked with a motivational coach in the summer and had shown some signs of a return to form, but he then went missing. Hard to fancy.

PDC Masters: Third Quarter

Michael Van Gerwen is the top seed in the 2021 PDC Masters with the other seed being James Wade. MVG is no longer the World number 1, World Champion nor Premier League Champion. His holy trinity of ambitions where failures last season and from a very high base, his stock took the biggest fall in 2020. He remains the world number two and I would say still one of the three or four best players at the present time. He lost in the quarter final of the World Championship, destroyed 0-4 by Dave Chisnall, a player who hadn’t beaten MVG since the last Ice Age. However, it must be said that he just met Chisnall on a day when nobody would have beaten him.

Across his four matches at the World Championship, Van Gerwen averaged 103, better than anyone else. Obviously, there isn’t much wrong with his game, just that the titles are harder to win. The opposition has upped their game and his opponents have lost the fear of facing him. MVG has said that, just like last year, he will be using new darts for this event. I think it is Wayne Mardell who says ‘it’s never the darts’. If a player isn’t playing well, it is usually throw related, never the darts. It is a bit of a worry that he is looking for salvation through a change of dart.

MVG Has To Be Favourite

All things considered, MVG must be the favourite. He has won this title five times, he needs to reassert himself on the opposition and no doubt he will have prepared well for the event. He has won nine of his last ten matches and he will take some stopping. Using new darts is a minus in my book, but he will have been practising with them for a while now, so it should be OK. His biggest problem is that he is likely to come up against a player throwing big numbers at him and his ability to bully opponents is not what it once was.

Van Gerwen faces the winner of the Jose De Sousa vs. Jonny Clayton match. De Sousa was the most improved player of 2020. He had threatened in 2019 but delivered the goods last year with a Euro Tour title, soon followed by his first major title, the Grand Slam of Darts. There was a bit of mental let down after that, losing in the third round of the Players Championship and World Championship. A few weeks off to reflect on a good season will have done him no harm and he comes here as the World number 15.

Clayton Now A World Cup Winner

Jonny Clayton won the World Cup of Darts alongside Gerwyn Price, the biggest win of his career. He won just one match at Ally Pally and wasn’t scoring well, but he had played well in the Players Championship finals but was on the end of a strong display by MVG. Clayton reached the semi-final of the European Championship before that, the last time he strung more than two match wins together on stage.

James Wade is starting to follow a very familiar pattern in tournaments. He plays well, very well, for a few matches, and then hits a flat spot. He made the final of the European Championship at the start of November but went down 4-11 to Peter Wright. Three weeks later he reached the final of the Grand Slam of Darts but lost 12-16 to Jose de Sousa.

He lost his first-round match at the Players Championship was a big disappointment at Ally Pally, going out in the third round with an 87 average and a 2-4 loss to Stephen Bunting. The Machine went from top form to poor form in a month. He has won seven of his last ten matches but lost three of his last four. Wade didn’t win any titles last year and his last stage tournament win was back in 2018.

Dimitri Coming Of Age

Wade will play either Dimitri van den Bergh or Chris Dobey. Van den Bergh came of age in 2020, picking up his first major title and looking like a contender in all the big events. His scoring is elite level and with his confidence never higher I expect him to kick on in 2021.

Chris Dobey remains without a PDC title of any sort after six years with a tour card. He is a talented player, but that lack of a title will be an unwelcome monkey on his back. Every passing year without a breakthrough just makes frustration a bigger part of his game.

At times he looks like a top 16 player but that never lasts for long. He looked like he was about to crack it in 2019, reaching two major semi-finals and being runner up in a Euro Tour event. Last year saw him slip down the rankings (now 23rd) and he is defending a very large slice of his ranking points in 2021. This is non ranking of course, so pressure on that front, but this is a big year for Dobey and a match against Van den Bergh is not the ideal start.

PDC Masters: Fourth Quarter

Defending Champion Peter Wright and Dave Chisnall are the two seeds here. I was there to see Peter Wright introduced onto the stage as the new World Champion here 12 months ago. The atmosphere was electric, and he was lapping it up. That he went on to win the title wasn’t a great surprise as he was the best player in the world then and he knew it. Snakebite was set for a whole season of adulation and there is no doubt that it would have been good for his game. Then came Covid-19 and he was robbed of that experience, of that advantage.

To his credit, Wright still had a good season, winning seven titles, second only to Gerwyn Price. Sadly for Wright he lost his best form just as the big money tournaments at the end of the year. He won the European Championship on the 1st November but failed to go beyond the group stage in the Grand Slam, played very poorly in the semi-final of the Players Championship, averaging 84 in a 4-11 demolition by Merv King.

He got a small crowd at Ally Pally for the opening night and, dressed as The Grinch, beat Steve West 3-1 before losing to Gabriel Clemens in the third round. Wright wasn’t a mile away from his best form, but the year ended with a whimper not a bang.

Still No Major For Chizzy

Dave Chisnall remained without a PDC major title in 2020 but he stays in the world top 10 (6th). Many players would have crumbled after 10 years on tour, most of that time whilst a top 10 player, without a major title. We can see the struggles of Michael Smith for example, but Chizzy just keeps on going, having good runs, such as his semi-final at this years World Championship, but always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

He seems immune from frustration and that has helped him amass over £2 million in prizemoney. He was runner up here in 2016 and a semi-finalist in 2019, so this has been another nice little earner for Chizzy. Another decent run would be no surprise but winning the 2021 PDC Masters title? History suggests not.

Peter Wright faces the winner of the Simon Whitlock vs. Krzysztof Ratajski match, which will be a tough match for him, whomever wins. The Wizard played some very good darts last year but is now outside the important top 16 which makes things a little more difficult.

His days of winning titles are some way in the past now (his last PDC titles came in 2017) but he still loves the game and remains as enthusiastic as ever. On a match to match basis, he can never be dismissed, but as for winning titles? That may be a step too far.

Polish Eagle Taking Flight

The Polish Eagle on the other hand is still improving and is yet to make the sort of impact in the big TV events as he has on the floor. He has now moved up into the top 16 and is a potential winner of any tournament he enters. He was a quarter finalist in this year’s World Championship, beating Whitlock 4-0 in the third round. His record against Wright isn’t good and for that reason he is hard to fancy for his first big title.

Dave Chisnall may get his annual Masters match up against Daryl Gurney, if the Ulsterman can beat Jeffery de Zwaan in the first round. Superchin had a disappointing 2020 but ended it with a quarter final at Ally Pally and very nearly taking out eventual winner Gerwyn Price, losing that quarter final 4-5 in a deciding leg. It was a much improved performance and sets him up nicely for the new season ahead. Gurney has lost all three of his previous first round matches here, the last two against Dave Chisnall, so he has that mental hurdle to overcome, but there is no reason to think that he can’t beat Chisnall if near his best.

Jeffery de Zwaan spent much of last year getting over shoulder surgery. It was a low profile year as a result and his career has stalled in the last couple of years. He is a great talent, but we need to see him stringing more wins together before considering him as a potential tournament winner.

Ante Post Selections

It is always that bit more difficult previewing a tournament after all the players have had a month or more away from competitive play. The form of the end of 2020 may not necessarily carry though, but it is all we have.

Gerwyn Price looks to be a logical choice to progress to the semi-finals in the first quarter. Probably beating Gary Anderson in the quarter final. The second quarter looks to be the most open with no absolute standout candidate, but on the form of late 2020 you have to give a good chance to Merv King. His form has been the best of that group of players.

The third quarter on the other hand looks tricky. So long as Michael van Gerwen gets on with his new darts, he has very strong claims for a semi-final slot. That might well come down to a quarter final against Van den Bergh and the Belgian is capable of upsetting MVG’s progress there.

The fourth quarter is super competitive but I will go for a quarter final between Peter Wright and Daryl Gurney and Superchin taking the win and making the semi-final.

The final? Price vs. MVG. The two players with the best recent form makes sense. The winner? Despite Prices poor H2H record over Van Gerwen, the new world number one now has the confidence to beat him more regularly.

2021 PDC Masters: 1 point Mervyn King to win the second quarter @ 7.00 with BET365

2021 PDC Masters: 1 point Daryl Gurney to win the fourth quarter @ 9.00 generally available

PDC Masters: 1 point Gerwyn Price/Michael van Gerwen final @ 6.50 with Betfair, Paddy Power, Boylesports

2021 PDC Masters: 1 point Gerwyn Price to win the Masters @ 5.00 with SpreadEx

Daily updates for match betting will be posted on the TX app.

-JamesPunt