Thought this final pair of Pro Tour events were on Tuesday/Wednesday. Oops. At least today I was able to get Ratajski as part of an each way strike for a tiny profit after my book removed PC29 before the event, I guess they couldn't react to mass withdrawals quickly enough, especially when MvG and Ando were part of them - rule 4 doesn't apply to darts it seems. Probably for the best, I wouldn't have gone for Brendan Dolan who binked his second event of the year, might have gone with White, but we'll see. Peter Wright got the win today, the day after people went nuts for his 6-0 drubbing of Ratajski (14-1 over the two events!), given he hit some good darts. I demand they bring back the News of the World so that we can get even sillier record averages.
New FRH rankings:
1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Rob Cross
3 Michael Smith
4 Gerwyn Price
5 Daryl Gurney
6 James Wade
7 Nathan Aspinall
8 Peter Wright (UP 3)
9 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)
10 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)
11 Ian White (DOWN 1)
12 Mensur Suljovic
13 Joe Cullen
14 Krzysztof Ratajski (UP 2)
15 Jonny Clayton
16 Simon Whitlock (DOWN 2)
17 Adrian Lewis
18 Glen Durrant
19 Jermaine Wattimena
20 Stephen Bunting
Super close from 7 to 11, less than a 10k spread between the lot of them. Ratajski making a final and quarter moves him above both Clayton and Whitlock, while lower down, Brendan Dolan hits the top 32.
That looks to clinch worlds and Minehead spots for everyone, for the worlds it looks as if Rowby just got in over Mansell, who's waiting on Jamie Lewis dropping out of the top 32 to get there, while Schindler, Petersen and Razma are among those just outside who may need other qualifiers to sneak in. Mansell did at least sneak into Minehead as the last man in over Ritchie Edhouse, leading a four way tie £250 behind the Cyclone, if as rumoured Barney doesn't bother then he'd get in. Was a bit surprising to see Jamie Hughes only finish 55th level with Ryan Meikle...
One other thing to mention is that they've announced the World Series invites. Smith, Price, Suljovic and White got the automatics, Aspinall and Chisnall getting invites is fine, then we go to international players - Wattimena fine, de Zwaan fine, Noppert fine, Clemens fine. Then we have Whitlock and Anderson. One who's putting in alright performances without the results, the other is doing neither. It seems incredibly uninspiring - you've got an Australian representative with Damon Heta being seeded, you don't need another two if they're not doing enough to warrant a pick. If you want an international feel, why not pick Jose de Sousa? Krzysztof Ratajski? Dimitri's done more this season than either of those two. I'd argue Max Hopp would be fine here. Heck, Glen Durrant? Doesn't need to just be limited to two UK players. Completely uninspiring. Still, those qualifiers to get into it are going to be fierce.
No comments:
Post a Comment