2022 International Darts Open Preview

The much loved PDC Euro Tour is set to return to its full complement of 13 tournaments this year, starting with the 2022 International Darts Open. It was last played in 2020, when Joe Cullen beat MVG in the final.

The top 16 seeds enter in round two on Saturday, with the first round made up of 24 tour card qualifiers along with local, regional and associate qualifiers.

These Euro Tour events are ranking and with Gerwyn Price and Peter Wright separated by just under £10k on the OOM, both will be striving to win this. Price to remain world number 1 and Wright to hit the top spot for the first time ever.

2022 International Darts Open: Top 16 Seeds

1. Joe Cullen

The defending champion and something of the man of the moment, returns to his beloved Euro Tour. He has won two Euro tour titles and reached a lot of quarter and semi-finals. Cullen has won 84% of his matches in 2022, won the Masters and two players championship titles so far. He is averaging just under 96 and his draw looks decent. A definite contender.

2. Jose de Sousa

The Special One has not reached a final of any description since last July and his form tailed off in 2021 as he was having problems with his sight and got a bad reaction to his covid vaccination. However, he is heading in the right direction again, if still not back to his best.

He has lost four of his last ten matches and has a win rate of 69% in 2022. We are seeing more big scores from him, and his power scoring is key to his game, but there are still too many off days. He is in a tough quarter of the draw and is hard to fancy, but he could have a few wins.

3. Peter Wright

The World Champion has won six of his last ten matches and won one player’s championship so far in 2022. He has won 79% of his matches but hasn’t been rock solid of late. But he remains perfectly capable of winning anything he plays in.

He is very popular in Germany, and he will be the crowd favourite.  He has tended to play his worst when I back him, which is annoying. Snakebite won this title in 2017 and made the semi-finals in 2019. I like his draw. The other three seeds in his quarter are bang out of form and he has one of the easier paths to the quarter finals.

4. Michael van Gerwen

This is a title MVG has never won and given his win drought in the last year or two, doesn’t look like winning this time. He remains the best scorer in the game, but he can’t convert that into winning titles.

Van Gerwen has won seven of his last ten matches but his win rate in 2022 is 62%, his lowest since 2010. His quarter of the draw includes Gerwyn Price, Danny Noppert and Damon Heta. He has lost his last match against all three. He remains poor value.

5. Gerwyn Price

Back in the gym with his personal trainer and it seems to be playing off. He says he feels great and that is helping his game on the oche. He went from villain to hero in Belfast two weeks ago when he hit two nine dart legs in a premier league match, and he had a 170 checkout as well.

Price has won eight of his last ten matches and is averaging just over 100 in 2022. The Iceman will be looking forward to returning to Riesa as he is a two time winner here, the only player to defend his title in six years. Deserved joint favourite despite a tricky quarter.

6. Michael Smith

Another former champion, Bully Boy won this back in 2015, beating Benito van de Pas in the final. He has started 2022 poorly and losing the final of the World Championship is taking longer to get over than he will have hoped.

Smith has won just three of his last ten matches, but his scoring remains strong, averaging 97 in 2022, but his win rate is just 40%. Hard to fancy with his confidence low and frustration rate off the scale.

7. Jonny Clayton

Not quite in top form, Clayton has lost four of his last ten matches and has a win rate of 66% in 2022. This time last year it was nearer 80%. That said his B game is good and he remains a contender, even if his game is just a little off.

8. James Wade

Wade may only be averaging 92.8 in 2022, but he remains the best checkout merchant in the game. His win rate in 2022 is 52% and he remains too inconsistent for my liking, but his most recent form sees seven wins from his last ten. Wade has not won on the Euro Tour since 2016.

9. Devon Petersen

The seedings for this event were set in June last year (it was due to be played in 2021 but was cancelled) and since than Petersen has fallen off the radar (currently 25th on the PDC OOM) but there have been recent signs of life in his game. He is averaging 93 in 2022, up three points from where he ended 2021.

His 2022 win rate is just 25% and he has lost eight of his last ten, but he has hit three 98+ averages in three of his last five matches. His game is very much about hitting treble 20 and while he isn’t back to being one of the biggest 180 hitters as he was a couple of years ago, he is hitting a lot of 140’s and is starting to look dangerous again. I would not say he is ready to compete for tournament wins again, but he must be taken more seriously.

10. Krzysztof Ratajski

The Polish Eagle has hit a bit of a wall in terms of making progress. He is now number 12 in the world rankings, but he has just one players championship title in 2021. He still hasn’t got his first TV title and just the one Euro Tour Title.

The Pole is averaging 94 in 2022 which is down on his 12 month average, but his win rate is a healthy 69%. He reached the semi-final of the PC4 a couple of weeks ago, but he got a bit lucky with the draw. He just doesn’t seem to be quite the player he was a year or two ago.

11. Dirk van Duijvenbode

Much the same can be said about Van Duijvenbode. He hasn’t been in form for a while now and 2022 hasn’t started well. He has lost six of his last ten, has a win rate of just 37% and is averaging 93.5. His game is all about power scoring but that part of his game is just not there at the moment.

12. Damon Heta

Could this be the year when Heta starts to realise his potential? He is one of the heavy scorers, but his results last year were a bit disappointing. He has started 2022 well however, winning 75% of his matches and he has won seven of his last ten.

Damon’s 2022 average is 100.7 and he was runner up in PC3 two weeks ago and a semi-finalist in PC2. He is throwing and scoring really well. He is due to meet Gerwyn Price in the third round and his H2H record against the in-form Welshman is 0-7. It is a shame that he has a tough draw as he is playing well enough to be a serious contender.

13. Danny Noppert

Making his seasonal reappearance having taken time out for the birth of his first child. He hasn’t played competitively for nearly two months and while ‘the Nappy Factor’ can see an uptick in players form, he is bound to be a bit rusty. Noppy made good progress last year and it will be interesting to see how he goes in 2022, but this may be a bit too early for him and his draw is tough.

14. Brendan Dolan

What has happened to Dolan? From one of the most consistent floor players in the last two years, his record in 2022 is played five, lost five. He has now lost seven matches in a row and his 2022 average is just 88.7. He doesn’t have much Euro Tour form and he is hard to fancy to make much progress.

15. Mensur Suljovic

The Gentle is a two time Euro Tour winner but he has become a bit of a journeyman in the last couple of years. He reached the final of the Gibraltar Darts Trophy late last year, losing 0-8 to Gerwyn Price, but he hasn’t won a title since 2019. He is averaging 92 in 2022, winning 62% of his matches. Suljovic won this back in 2016 but his best days may be behind him.

16. Nathan Aspinall

The return of The Asp. Aspinall has been laid up with tendon problems ever since losing his third round match at Ally Pally. He played that with heavy strapping on the affected arm and he wasn’t able to play at his usual level. He only started throwing darts again about ten days ago and it is hard to expect too much after a longer injury induced lay off.

2022 International Darts Open: Best of the Rest

With the qualifying event of this tournament having been held last June, we have some current top 16 players entering at the first round stage and a few other big names who have to take their chances on Friday.

Rob Cross

The European Champion of 2021 had to qualify for this last summer, he now sits well inside the top 16 after that major title win. He has won seven of his last ten matches, has a 2022 win rate of 67% and has reached two players championship quarter finals, losing to Wright and Cullen. He was runner up here in 2019 but strangely, while he is a two time European Championship winner, he has never won a Euro Tour title.

Ryan Searle

Is now ranked 16th in the world rankings but he had to qualify for this last summer. Heavy Metal was runner up in PC1 at the start of the month, but since then he has played five and lost three. His 2022 win rate is 64% and he is averaging 97.1. He will be looking to get stuck into the Euro tour in 2021 and is capable of getting a win, but he is not a prodigious tournament winner.

Kim Huybrechts

The Hurricane has not blown himself out yet and is staging something of a comeback. His 2022 win rate is 76% and he is averaging 94.1. Huybrechts has not won on the Euro Tour event since 2015 but he will be very familiar with this event having been a semi-finalist in 2015 and runner up in 2016 and 2017.

He has won eight of his last ten matches so he is picking up a winning habit, but he is still a little too far off the big names to think he can go on and win this weekend. However, given a decent draw, he could have a good run.

Daryl Gurney

Another player on the comeback trail. Superchin hasn’t won a title since 2019 but his game is heading in the right direction once more. In 2022 he has won 74% of his matches, eight of his last ten and is averaging 95.3.

Consistency is the missing part of the jigsaw, but he appears to have got his mojo back and is looking dangerous. He will be seeking to make an impact on the pro tour and euro tour in 2022 as he heads back towards the top 16.

Dimitri van den Bergh

It’s unusual to see the world number nine having to play a first round match but here it is. Dimitri is averaging 97.2 in 2022 and has won 67% of his matches. He was runner up to Joe Cullen in PC4 two weeks ago. He won three matches in the deciding leg and averaged 108 when beating Daryl Gurney 6-5 in the quarter final, so he looks to be back in good form after a quiet spell. He is another player still looking for his first Euro Tour title, but he has the talent to put that right.

Outright Selections

Looking at the tournament quarter by quarter, the first quarter looks the place to be. Joe Cullen is defending the title and he is the top seed. He will meet the winner of the Madars Razma vs. Wayne Jones match, which is a good draw. He should be OK until the quarter final where I suspect he will face Wade or Huybrechts and right now, I would give Huybrechts the nod to reach the quarters, but Cullen to progress.

Quarter Of Death

The second quarter is the quarter of death. The seeds are MVG, Price, Heta and Noppert. Just to make it worse both Ryan Searle and Daryl Gurney have been drawn in this quarter as first round players. Whoever comes through this deserves it, but an MVG vs. Price quarter final looks most likely, and these days that usually means a win for Price.

The third quarter also looks tough and not made any easier by Rob Cross and Dimitri van den Bergh entering it at the first round stage. Jonny Clayton is the favourite to make the semi-final but he hasn’t been in top form of late. Van den Bergh has a tricky first round opponent in the shape of in-form Martin Lukeman, but his experience should be enough to get him into the second round and a winnable match with Mensur Suljovic.

Straightforward

The last quarter looks more straightforward. Peter Wright is the best player in it by some margin and while he can implode when I back him, he does look to have a great chance to make the semi-final.

Gerwyn Price will be hard to stop winning his third International Darts Open title but he will have to be on it from the word go in a very tough quarter and I’ll take him on with three others.

2022 International Darts Open Tip: 2 points Peter Wright to win @ 6.50 generally available

2022 International Darts Open Tip: 1 point Joe Cullen to win @ 11.00 generally available

2022 International Darts Open Tip: 1 point Dimitri van den Bergh to win @ 23.00 with Betfred, Hills, Fitzdares

Selected first round matches to follow shortly before the 12 noon (13.00 local) start.

-JamesPunt