BDO last 16 thoughts

The final round 1 game has just finished, and outside of Jamie Hughes going out to German qualifier Michael Unterbuchner, there's been a shortage of real shocks - 11 of the other 14 seeds have made it through, and I don't think anyone would have been too stunned to see Whitehead over Menzies or Waites over Montgomery - the Warren over Harms result is a bit of a surprise I guess. So what about the last 16?

Durrant - Fitton: Fitton only managed 5/10 legs in fifteen darts, Durrant got 6/9 - Durrant's shown what he can do over the last twelve months, particularly recently at the Slam, while Fitton's never shown that he can put together a string of tidy legs that might trouble Glen over a seven set match.

Whitehead - Williams: Conan got 5/11 legs in par, Williams 4/13. This is a concern for the seed who didn't have anything like an easy game against Nilsson, Whitehead's scoring when losing was also over five points higher than Jim's was, so the seed could be in a spot of bother here. Pity I don't have any stats from the Zuiderduin to look at.

Waites - Reynolds: Dean got just 3/10 legs in par, but so did Waites. Reynolds is in a few stats over the whole database, both in BDO events and the UK Open, and this is his normal game it seems. Waites is a touch better on average, and can certainly hit a higher peak, if it gets into a longer game his experience and general better standard should show.

Mitchell - Baetens: I mentioned Scott's performance in the previous post which was clearly the best so far by some distance, Baetens pulled together a weak 4/12 legs in par and with nothing else to compare it to, I can't think of any reason not to think Scott advances here.

McGeeney - Noppert: Noppert's played the better in both his prelim and first round game, we've known this one for a while, at no point in any of my database has Mark put in a performance that makes me think he can beat Danny if he continues to play as he has been doing - only really the last Slam match looked OK but he was drawing very thin if not dead at that stage so there's not much to read into there.

Warren - Mandigers: Wayne had a great first round game to eliminate Harms, while Mandigers had an otherwise alright 5/9 par legs. Question is whether Warren can sustain that level over a longer game, looking at limited previous stats I'd think Willem could, if Warren could then I think we'd have seen more over the course of his career.

de Vos - Veenstra: Low country derby here, Geert wasn't too impressive in beating the Dutch qualifier Telnekes with 3/11 legs in par, whereas Veenstra clocked in 7/12 being pushed hard by Kyle McKinstry. Veenstra was similarly impressive last year before running into Danny Noppert, de Vos played much better than this last year. Geert will need to step his game up and if he doesn't he'll lose, but he's certainly capable and this could be a good one.

Unterbuchner - Phillips: Michael was pretty average in his qualifier with 4/12 legs in par, and only had a slightly better 6/15 ratio in beating Hughes, but he's quietly got three twelve dart legs, so is showing spurts of class, Phillips only got 2/11 legs in par earlier today in an awful match where only three of the twenty legs combined were able to be finished in fifteen darts, he can very occasionally turn it on (see some of the later World Trophy games), but is usually incredibly mediocre even by BDO standards and should lose this one.