Saturday Grand Slam Of Darts Preview

Jonny Clayton came to within two darts of landing our 40/1 9-darter bet. Ultimately, he was beaten by Gerwyn Price though and Rob Cross crashed out too on Friday night, losing to James Wade. The quarter finals continue tonight and James Punt is back for more punishment. Check out his Saturday Grand Slam of Darts tips and preview below.

Saturday Grand Slam of Darts: Quarter Finals

Michael van Gerwen vs. Michael Smith

MVG has a very healthy 32-9 H2H record against Smith and in their last ten H2H’s it is 7-3. They have met twice in this competition with Van Gerwen winning a semi-final 16-6 in 2015 and 10-8 in a second round match in 2018.

Van Gerwen was made to work for his 10-8 second round match vs. Gary Anderson after he only dropped three legs in the group stage. Smith had an easy 10-5 win over a very disappointing Joe Cullen in the second round. If Cullen had hit his doubles, he missed 19 from 25, then it could have been a different story and Smith was a bit lucky that his opponent didn’t turn up.

Achilles’ Heel

Smith’s Achilles’ Heel is the doubles and in his last two matches he has checked out at 26% and 29%. That just won’t do. He got away with it against Cullen because Cullen was even worse, Van Gerwen will not be so generous.

MVG is scoring better 103.7 vs. 95, is checking out better 46% vs. 30% and is hitting maximums at 0.47 per leg to Smith’s 0.36 per leg.

Van Gerwen is on the comeback trail, and he will want to win and win by as big a margin as possible. If Smith repeats his doubling performance of his last two matches he could get smashed up and Van Gerwen is very capable of putting the pressure on and getting Smith to drop his head.

Nice Path To Final

Van Gerwen has won five of his seven quarter finals in this event and is the 1.29 favourite to do so again. The winner gets the victor in the Sherrock vs. Wright match and that makes the path to the final look a comfortable one.

MVG is very likely to win, it is just a question of by how much. If Smith can up his checkout % he can make it closer than the market suggests, if it stays around 30%, then it will be very one sided.

I haven’t got much enthusiasm left for this tournament but if I had to have a bet it would be for MVG to cover a -4.5 leg handicap.

Peter Wright vs. Fallon Sherrock

The match everyone is talking about. The hype machine has gone into overdrive. Sherrock for the Premier League is the latest and if the PDC can see that she will fill venues, she is in. Very likely to finish last but there’s money to be made here.

These two came through the same group and Peter wright won their H2H 5-1. He averaged 96.4 that night and that has been his best performance of the tournament so far. His current tournament average is just 91.5 and that is a fair refection of where is game is right now. His checkout rate is just 28% but he is still hitting plenty of 180’s at 0.435 per leg.

Sherrock only hit one double from nine in the group match which helps explain the 1-5 defeat. Since then, she has got her checkout rate up to 40%, she is hitting 180s at 0.38 per leg and her tournament average is 94.

Sherrock’s game is better than Wrights at the minute.

Sherrock Overpriced

Peter Wright is the 1.17 favourite and Sherrock 6.00 (7.60 on the exchange) and even I can’t pass that by. Yes, Sherrock has been lucky that Mensur Suljovic put in one of the worst performances of modern times in the last round, and Mike de Decker was even worse, but Sherrock beat Clemens and he played OK.

Wright has played and beaten Sherrock, so he isn’t fazed by playing a woman in the same way as Mensur Suljovic is. He couldn’t say the crowd were against him the other night as it was quite restrained. The crowd knew Sherrock had won after about four legs.

If you are backing Wright at 1.17 you need to be sure he can bring his B-game but on his recent form it is his C-game that is more likely.

By backing her, I am making sure that this is as far as Sherrock will go of course, but ho hum, it looks a reasonable bet.

Saturday Grand Slam of Darts Tip: 1 point Fallon Sherrock to win @ 6.00 with BET365, Betfred, Unibet

Due to Formula 1 commitments tomorrow, the semi-finals will not be covered, you lucky people. Hopefully I’ll have time for a shuffty at the final and put the curse on something there.

-JamesPunt