Dave Chisnall 10-7 Mervyn King
Infuriating one this, started off extremely sloppy with neither player able to get anything like a good leg until Chisnall broke in fifteen to lead 3-2 at the break, the game then picked up but wasn't spectacular until we got to 6-6, then Chizzy fired in back to back twelves before Mervyn had a very bad scoring leg, manufactured a dart at tops to hold which was badly shanked, allowing Chizzy to break in eighteen darts. Mervyn did break back in fifteen after Dave missed three match darts, but missed a dart for Shanghai on twenties to hold and Chisnall closed it out. Annoying as King should have been 4-1 up at the break really, and kept things in general good order. Chisnall's numbers look OK and should be fine for round two, but he'll need to improve in a quarter final if he gets that far.
Phil Taylor 10-5 Gerwyn Price
Finally we get to see Phil throwing competitive darts for the first time in over six months, and he started like a train - wins the first leg then has one of those crappy online stoppages for no reason as Price held in seven visits, holding in five turns and breaking in four with a great 151 out, but fair play to Price, he held things together and hit straight back with a twelve of his own on a 170 out. Things went with throw in the second session, pretty poor in that only one leg was killed in fifteen darts, then Taylor won every leg without ever really being troubled - holding two in fifteen (one under no pressure, the final leg being under big pressure, Price donking away his look away 180 by hitting single one first dart at 100), holding in seven in a doubling clown show, then stepping in when Price twice couldn't finish his own throw in eighteen darts. Against Barney he'll need to be much improved, his figures are bang average.
Raymond van Barneveld 10-8 Joe Cullen
Hats off to Cullen here - he's the second player this week to throw four twelve darters in defeat (after James Wilson), and it would have been very easy to capitulate after going 7-3 down at the break, but he kept things going and clawed his way back into it, and but for a couple of key missed darts at double late in the game in Barney's late winning legs (tens to kill 140 in the decider, three clean at tops in the clownshow fifteenth leg which iced the game as Barney broke in nineteen darts) he could easily have nicked this. Barney, if we're comparing with Phil, did a bit worse - both had five legs won in less than fifteen, one of which each was a twelve, but Barney was allowed to win two legs in over six visits, Phil only the one, and Phil was about three points higher on the losing average, so their next round game might be close.
Alan Norris 10-6 Kim Huybrechts
Some day, hopefully in the not too distant future, Huybrechts will actually be able to put a string of legs together that we know that he's capable of, and was showing in the first three legs, before he then proceeded to lose eight legs in a row, seven of which he could have won if he had just finished a leg in fifteen darts - 15 Dart Bot beats Norris 10-1 here. Kim's average in losing legs was actually over 90, which surprised me given how easily Norris was allowed to accumulate his lead, but Kim was on 40 or less in all but one legs he lost. Norris will need to do much better against Chisnall in the next round - while Dave can be a world champion in faffing around on doubles, probably beating Huybrechts in the final of that event, he should generate enough chances to get the fifteen dart legs he needs to dispose of Chuck.
Bit of a disappointing session betting wise with the Huybrechts/King losses, leaving us, barring a Bunting shock, either around a unit down or a fraction of a unit up after round 1 dependent on the White/Cross result. For round 2, I'm needing to recheck some numbers tomorrow evening, and bookies were a bit slow in getting Tuesday lines (the Anderson/Wright half) out, but at a quick glance Suljovic, Webster and Reyes look like they should be plays, keep an eye out tomorrow evening as I should hopefully have Tuesday analysis up during the Whitlock game (think he's first up), probably won't be as in depth with pretty graphs and everything but should drill to the facts that matter.
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