Matchplay day 2 afternoon analysis

Justin Pipe 10-5 Jelle Klaasen

Strange one, Pipe's speed of finishing was more or less on par with his historical finishing, getting four legs in fifteen darts out of ten is bang on his 41% long term figure, and getting a further four in six visits is close as well (hard to be precise, he's at 86%), so how did Jelle not exploit this? It's primarily bad play on his own throw - first two legs he let Pipe break in six visits and seven visits, and let him break a further time in six visits in leg 10. Add to that letting Pipe hold leg seven in seven visits, all of which took place before the final break, put him too far behind, and he wasn't playing well enough to claw anything back.

Cristo Reyes 10-3 Robert Thornton

Another near full point in the bag for FRH bet followers as Reyes ran riot on Thornton, while there was just the one twelve dart leg, to get the first break and lead 3-1, he clocked in with another six legs in fifteen darts or less and didn't win any legs in more than six visits. This wasn't going to give Thornton too many opportunities - legs three, five and thirteen were the only chances Thornton had to break in fifteen darts, in which he didn't leave a finish, couldn't kill 112, then missed three clear darts at 40, but at 9-3 down it was a lost cause anyway. It wasn't a horrible standard by Thornton, averaging 89 when losing and getting 2/3 legs in fifteen darts, but he needed to step up against Reyes in this form, and didn't.

Daryl Gurney 11-9 Benito van de Pas

This was a bad match, at least as far as standards go, and a weird match. Gurney won 11 legs, of which nine needed more than five visits, which should have given Benito enough chances to claim the victory - 15 Dart Bot would be leading 8-1 with the tenth being undecidable given Gurney's position when Benito broke in twelve, and wins 10-3 at the very worst. That said, Benito averaged just 83 when losing legs, which is going to give Gurney enough margin for error to get by, while Gurney was averaging over 100 when Benito won his legs. He's going to have to step up his game against Anderson, at least to what he's been doing in recent times.

Mensur Suljovic 10-4 John Henderson

Solid enough game from Mensur, grabbing six out of ten legs in fifteen, with three of the others coming in the opening session where Henderson couldn't capitalise - not even getting a dart at double in leg three despite having six visits, only getting a last dart at bull in the sixth visit the leg after, then missing three clean at double 19 to go into the break 5-0 down. Henderson averaged 82 when losing, which isn't enough against someone with Suljovic's consistency to really challenge.

This rounds out the Tuesday schedule, which looks like Suljovic/Pipe, Webster/West, Anderson/Gurney and Wright/Reyes - I'll update the figures and preview the second round, if not tonight, some time tomorrow.