Monday 4 September 2017

Maastricht aftermath

Michael van Gerwen claimed yet another title, but what awards shall I give?

Best player performance: A lot of good contenders here. van Gerwen was in pretty hot form, nailing 23/30 won legs in fifteen darts, Robert Owen and Krzysztof Ratajski had great runs, but I'm giving it to Steve Beaton for his final run. After grinding out the first two rounds, his Sunday was very good, ending close to a ton average against Schindler, then slotting in 10/12 legs against Henderson and Wright in fifteen darts or less, averaging three figures in both games. van Gerwen would be a game too far, but this result will solidify Beaton's position in a lot of rankings for the next twelve months.

Best single match performance: Beaton's semi final with three twelve dart legs is up there, Whitlock against West, Aspinall against van de Pas and van Gerwen against Gurney were all very high quality, while Kyle Anderson blitzed Justin Pipe in the performance of the opening day, but it has to go to Ratajski against Kist - as mentioned previously, nobody apart from van Gerwen has managed to win every leg on the European Tour this year in under fifteen darts while getting three twelve darters at the same time, an incredibly impressive feat.

Worst player performance: Benito van de Pas was very disappointing, only getting one leg against Nathan Aspinall and averaging under 90. He'd have needed to be on point to have beaten Aspinall as he played, but he never gave himself a chance.

Worst single match performance: Jamie Bain wasn't able to win a single leg, which is surprising given that Owen only got one leg in less than fifteen darts, an 84 average isn't great and I'd have thought on most days Bain beats the performance that Owen does - and who knows from there whether Bain would have been able to take advantage as Owen did?

Gained a fifth of a unit on the betting, basically purely down to getting Owen/Whitlock right. I'd transposed the stats in the career to date by accident on the right, so it was showing about half a unit better off than it should have been, this is now corrected.

New adjusted FRH rankings:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright
3 Gary Anderson
4 Phil Taylor
5 Dave Chisnall
6 Daryl Gurney (UP 1)
7 Mensur Suljovic (DOWN 1)
8 James Wade
9 Michael Smith (UP 1)
10 Raymond van Barneveld (DOWN 1)
11 Simon Whitlock (UP 1)
12 Adrian Lewis (DOWN 1)
13 Alan Norris
14 Ian White (UP 2)
15 Jelle Klaasen (DOWN 1)
16 Kim Huybrechts (DOWN 1)
17 Benito van de Pas
18 Gerwyn Price
19 Joe Cullen
20 Mervyn King

Of this weekend's competitors, Beaton climbs up to #23, Kyle Anderson climbs to #25, knocking Robert Thornton out, Kist and Henderson solidify spots in the top 35, Mike de Decker moves into the top 70, Martin Schindler is less than £500 outside the same, Ratajski and Aspinall move inside the top 80, while Robert Owen is just outside the top 90. Mannheim has become very interesting - it's the last event before the Grand Prix, and Robert Thornton is in some danger, but North and Huybrechts both losing opening round here has given him a slight bit of breathing room, and it's probably a case of if Ronny Huybrechts can make a last 16 run, which is the minimum he'd need to qualify with the way results have worked out. We're also now three quarters done with European Championship qualification, for which there's a very close battle for seedings which those who have a bye to the second round are involved in - only three grand separates Joe Cullen in sixth and Dave Chisnall in eleventh. It's also very tight for qualification as a whole, eight grand is currently enough, but James Richardson in 26th and Jonny Clayton in 38th are separated by just two grand. And, of course, this all counts towards qualification for the worlds, and the race for the Pro Tour spots is incredibly tight.

No comments:

Post a Comment