2024 Friday Bahrain Darts Masters Tips – JP
2024 Friday Bahrain Darts Masters Preview & Tips
We made an ok start on Thursday but it was close to being much better. Muramatsu easily covered the spread and only lost in a final leg shootout. Gerwyn Price and Nathan Aspinall scraped through and we just missed the correct score for Cross v Goto. At least we finished on a high note with Leung and Nebrida both covering the handicap. We go again today, find out who James is backing in his 2024 Friday Bahrain Darts Masters preview.
Overview
The interesting part of this tournament is over. The Asian Tour players huffed and puffed, but they couldn’t get a player over the line and into today’s quarter finals. We are left with the full contingent of eight PDC pros to battle it out to a finish tonight.
Thankfully for those of us in the UK, today’s darts are on ITV4 and not on the nonsense that is ITVX. Of course, ITV don’t give a rat’s fart for the darts, and it will not be shown live, for that go to PDCTV. The delay isn’t too bad, around 30 minutes behind live.
Luke Humphries vs. Gerwyn Price
Luke Humphries’ winning streak now stands at 20 after he dismissed the local qualifier 6-0. Humphries didn’t show any mercy and averaged 98. I like to see that. He was 100% on his doubles and he seems to be carrying on from where he left off at Ally Pally.
Gerwyn Price struggled a little to beat Reynaldo Rivera. It was a 6-4 win in the end but he was outscored by the Asian Tour player and Price only averaged 92. A more experienced pro would have put Price to the sword and he looks to be up against it here.
Something Missing
There is something missing with Price’s game and it is not usually his scoring. He has just looked a bit off his chips for a few months now. The spark that fires him up isn’t there. He has won seven of his last ten matches, so his dip in form is relative, but it is there.
Their H2H record is 8-4 to Price but it was Humphries who won three of their four matches in 2023, including a World Series quarter final which he won 6-4. Price averaged 104 that day and still lost.
Their last four matches have produced 36 maximums at a rate of 0.65 per leg. They hit seven between them yesterday and hopefully they can bounce off each other and entertain the crowd. The odds are 1.91 for over 6.50, so there doesn’t look to be much value there.
2024 Friday Bahrain Darts Masters Tip: 1 point Luke Humphries to win @ 1.70 with Fitzdares
Michael van Gerwen vs. Rob Cross
The two old rivals meet for the 34th time, with MVG having won twenty seven of their previous meetings. In 2023 it was 2-2.
Van Gerwen smashed his Bahraini opponent 6-0 and averaged 106 last night, throwing down a marker for the rest of the field. Cross beat his Japanese opponent 6-3 in a pretty flat performance where his doubling was the deciding factor. Both players averaged 94.
All four of their matches last year were quite close and given that both are in good form and scoring well on the whole, another fairly close match would seem possible.
MVG is the 1.62 favourite, Cross 2.38. There might be a touch of value in Cross, if he can put some pressure on Van Gerwen, we might see his doubling let him down again. The best bet, however, may be on another close match.
2024 Friday Bahrain Darts Masters Tip: 1 point over 9.5 legs @ 2.10 with Betfair
Nathan Aspinall vs. Luke Littler
Aspinall survived a match dart from Ilagan last night, and he is a lucky boy to still be in the tournament. He has lost six of his last ten matches and was far from convincing yesterday.
Despite averaging 98.2 he very nearly lost to a player averaging 84.3. Missing fifteen doubles was his problem. Three of his last four matches have seen sub 30% checkout rates and he can’t afford that now he is up against the rampant Littler.
Littler went 0-2 down to Man-Lok Leung yesterday, but that was as far as his rustiness lasted. He wasn’t great on the doubles at times and his checkout rate was just 26%, but he still managed a 97.2 average.
There is no H2H to go on and this will be Aspinall’s introduction the ‘the Nuke’.
Littler is the 1.47 favourite with Aspinall at 3.00. The odds look about right. Aspinall has the firepower to compete with Littler, but if his doubling radar is off once again, he could be comfortably beaten.
2024 Friday Bahrain Darts Masters Tip: 1 point Luke Littler to win -1.5 legs @ 1.70 with Boylesports
Michael Smith vs. Peter Wright
Both players required a deciding leg to win their first round matches against the Asian Tour representatives. Peter Wright continues to struggle and he averaged just 91.69 against Muramatsu. There was some good stuff in there but very little consistency, from both players it must be said.
Michael Smith averaged 98.28, over ten points more than Paolo Nebrida, but still had to survive multiple match darts against him. It wasn’t a bad performance by Smith, his opponent was very tenacious, but his body language is getting very much like the old Michael Smith. His frustration is very close to the surface and he is vulnerable when he is frustrated.
Wright Ahead in H2H
Their H2H record is interesting, 33-17 to Peter Wright, but the interesting bit is that Wright was 5-3 in 2023, a year where his form was in the toilet most of the time.
There was a 6-3 win for Wright in the quarter final of a World Series event in August and a 10-4 win at the European Championship finals in October. Wright won both their World Series matches last year and he won their last three meetings.
Michael Smith is the 1.50 favourite and Wright the 2.75 outsider, and the money has been going down on Wright. When Wright beat Smith in 2023, he did so fairly comprehensively, while two of Smith’s three wins required a deciding leg. Does Wright have a bit of a hold over Smith?
Huffy Bully Boy
Smith has been playing better than Wright, despite both players stock having fallen in 2023. He played better yesterday, but he is getting a bit huffy, and Wright is a canny player who may be able to exploit any frustration in Smith’s game.
It is hard to get any enthusiasm to back Peter Wright these days, but if he had a +1.5 leg handicap in all eight of their matches in 2023, he would have won seven. There was some good stuff in his match yesterday and he may well raise his game against a player versus whom he has a good H2H record.
