With van Gerwen out, it was wide open for someone new to pick up a title, and Gerwyn Price added to his catalogue with an 8-4 win over Gabriel Clemens. Very impressive final from the Welshman, winning his legs in 11, 12x3, 13, 14x2 and 15 darts, and not really a surprise, he was playing excellent stuff last weekend and has looked strong in the Premier League to date. Clemens maybe had a bit of luck of the draw, only averaging near the ton twice, generally being in the low 90's otherwise (apart from a nailfest round two against Alan Norris), but take what you're given I guess.
Chizzy continued a decent start to the year reaching the semi, with Danny Noppert also getting there, one of two players to hit a nine and lose (Scott Baker being the other against Chisnall, another board final for Scott). The last sixteen was mostly familiar names, the standout Ryan Searle in a quarter final being the only player that might have been a slight surprise, probably chuck Ross Smith (remember the players to watch?) in as well who won his board. It was very much a day for the seeds in general with only Darren Webster from the top 16 losing his opening match, there being very few early casualties lower down the seedings either.
Barney went out round two to Steve Beaton, some first round losses that might have been odd were Dimitri (to Pete Hudson), Steve West (to Ross Smith), James Wilson (to Scott Baker) and de Zwaan (to Nathan Aspinall) - although it shows the strength in depth of the PDC that all of the players winning those games aren't seeded.
PC6 draw is out - Whitlock's in this one and has got Kevin Burness, no disrespect to Kevin but if Simon can't win that one I'm starting to get really worried. Board 11 looks fun with Smith and Dobey being the seeds, and Meulenkamp, Richardson, Dootson, Dolan, de Sousa and McGeeney making up the numbers, board 13 has some big names with Adie/Robbe, Kim Huybrechts/Norris, Clemens/Hughes and Killington/Durrant being the lineup. @dartselo1 has started putting up prize money EV for these, may as well just write BFH for George there. Probably ought to chuck in board 6 on a second viewing, Gurney/Humphries in round 1 looks tasty, then you have Dimitri/Dudbridge, Evans/Gray and Baker/Labanauskas. Not sure how I missed that board first time around.
Some other individual first round games of interest to me include Nathan Derry v Ross Smith, Wattimena/Barney, Aspinall/Alcinas (Lennon/Koltsov in that mini-section isn't bad either), Payne/Searle and West/Pallett.
Off to crunch the numbers of PC5, be back later with a roundup of today's action. We've got the last UK Open qualifier in Liverpool as well, Daniel Day, Barry Lynn and Callan Rydz getting through, no unfamiliar names there but I'm pleased for Callan having played some fantastic stuff the last year and a bit but not quite doing enough to get a tour card, maybe this can be a breakthrough event. No Paul Hogan yet though, will he be doing the big trip from Norwich to Liverpool today for one last shot? Will Alex Roy appear from nowhere to keep up his appearance record? Stay tuned. Finally, props to Willem Mandigers who apparently hit a nine in Slovakia yesterday, nice work.
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