2025 WM Darts Tuesday Night Preview – JP
2025 WM Darts Tuesday Night Preview
James Punt fired in two more winners on Monday, including a two-pointer. His 2025 WM Darts Tuesday Night previews and tips are below.
First Round Reflections
The first round ended with the account +3.25 points and we now move on to the second round and slightly longer, best of 21 leg matches. Seven of the top 16 seeds fell at the first fence, and three of the magic nine. Luke Littler is now the 2.20 favourite and our three outright selections are still going with Gerwyn Price at 7.00, Jonny Clayton 17.00 and James Wade 29.00.
Gian Van Veen vs. Danny Noppert
Gian van Veen ended the hopes of Luke Humphries in the first round and it wasn’t a total surprise. Humphries had been losing a few matches and wasn’t quite at his best. Van Veen was good enough to take advantage. He has now won six of his last ten matches. All ten were 91+ averages and eight 95+ and he is playing with a good degree of consistency.
Noppert has won seven of his last ten and much like Van Veen, he is playing very consistently with nine 95+ averages. Noppert has won one of his three previous second round matches at the Matchplay, while this is new ground for Van Veen, but he has played in the latter stages of three Majors.
H2H Close
Their H2H record is 4-3 to Noppert and these two represented the Netherlands at this year’s World Cup of Darts. There is not much between the two in terms of form but looking at their playing stats, Van Veen is the better player in most metrics, but again not by much. They have not played each other in a long format match before.
The market has Van Veen as the 1.57 favourite with Noppert 2.50. I have Van Veen as the favourite, but not as short as 1.57. There is some value in Noppert’s odds but nothing massive. The temptation is to go for an overs bet in anticipation of a close match but odds of 1.91 for over 18.5 legs are only fair. No bet.
2025 WM Darts Tuesday Night Tip: No bet
Wessel Nijman vs. James Wade
James Wade is playing in his 20th Matchplay, Nijman making his debut. Nijman has already done what most debutants don’t and that is to win their first match.
Wade has won twelve second round matches, but only two of his last five. Wade is still a force in the ranking Majors and in the last thirteen, he has reached two finals, plus another two semi-finals and two quarter finals.
Nijman has only played in seven and a total of twelve matches in televised Majors, of which he has won four. He beat Nathan Aspinall 10-6 in the first round, averaging 101.72. He was very strong on the doubles with a 62.5% checkout rate, and he hit eight 180s at 0.5 per leg.
James Wade was even more impressive in his first-round win over Joe Cullen. He averaged 104.44 and was checking out at 66.67%. Wade has won seven of his last ten matches and is 3-0 against Nijman, all best of eleven leg matches. This is a much longer format and one that Wade is much more used to playing.
Lacks Consistency
Nijman has won six of his last ten matches and it is fair to say that he lacks the consistency to go with his power scoring. Young players take time to develop a good B game and Nijman’s recent B game has seen a couple of sub 90s and three sub 94s, so he is not far off being the full package.
If anything, it is Wade who needs to improve his B game. In his last ten matches he has had four sub 90 averages. Three of them came in matches immediately after he won PC19, so there may have been a bit of mental let down in his game.
Nijman can be backed at 1.91, Wade 2.00. The market is leaning towards the power scoring of Nijman being enough to see off the experience and top class finishing of Wade. As we are on Wade outright, I am not keen to get involved here at short odds.
We got 67.00 on Wade and he just needs to win this and a quarter final vs. the winner of the Van Veen – Noppert match to land a nice payout. No bet.
2025 WM Darts Tuesday Night Tip: No Bet
Stephen Bunting vs. Gary Anderson
Bunting made hard work of beating Ryan Joyce, winning 10-8 and averaging 98.00. He has won seven of his last ten matches and is in top form. In his last eight tournaments Bunting has reached the final of four and won two. He is much more comfortable at the business end of events these days, but we are not at that stage just yet.
Gary Anderson took a while to get going against Luke Woodhouse, but he won five straight legs after the second break to win 10-5. He has won six of his last ten matches and is in good form, but maybe not quite as consistently good as Bunting has been.
H2H
Their H2H record is 16-5 to Anderson and he has won their last four in a row. They have not met this year and their last match was a 10-6 win in the last sixteen stage of last year’s Grand Slam. They have met in three previous Matchplays and Anderson won them all, 13-8, 10-7 and 10-5, the last being in 2021. I would say that Bunting is a much-improved player since then but he is still a bit in awe of Anderson.
Anderson has not got beyond the second-round stage here in seven of the last ten years, Bunting has only got beyond the second round once in his ten previous Matchplays.
The market is going 1.91 each of two, which is fair enough given Bunting’s form and Anderson’s H2H record. I do wonder if Bunting’s regard for Anderson might be his downfall. There is also that very poor tournament record to consider.
Last year Bunting made hard work of beating Ryan Joyce in the first round and then lost 11-7 to Luke Humphries in the second.
2025 WM Darts Tuesday Night Tip: 1 point Gary Anderson to win @ 1.91 generally available
Jonny Clayton vs. Mike de Decker
Clayton averaged just under the ton in his 10-7 win over Martin Schindler and he has won seven of his last ten matches. His scoring is great, as is his consistency. He is 5-2 against De Decker and they tend to meet once a year and it is Clayton who has won four of their last five, the last being a 6-0 in a Euro Tour match in May. De Decker was dire on the doubles that day.
Mike De Decker beat the out of form Dave Chisnall 10-7 in a very ordinary match. Beating Chisnall isn’t that hard right now, and De Decker will have to play better tonight. He has lost five of his last ten matches and he hasn’t won back-to-back matches in his last nine. I expect Clayton to be too good for De Decker, who isn’t in great form.
