Matchplay aftermath

It's in the books, congrats to Peter, Dimitri couldn't quite retain but has got to be somewhat happy with the way he's played, moving himself out of the trickier seeds and into the nice 4/5 spot. The upshot of the final is that Wright's now got the second highest scoring of the season (de Sousa is still higher), and Dimitri sits nicely in seventh behind the "big three", de Sousa, Clayton and the ever impressive Ratajski.

New FRH rankings:

1 Gerwyn Price

2 Peter Wright (UP 1)

3 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 1)

4 James Wade

5 Dimitri van den Bergh (UP 2)

6 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

7 Jose de Sousa (DOWN 1)

8 Dave Chisnall

9 Michael Smith

10 Krzysztof Ratajski (UP 3)

11 Joe Cullen (DOWN 1)

12 Jonny Clayton (DOWN 1)

13 Dirk van Duijvenbode (DOWN 1)

14 Nathan Aspinall

15 Stephen Bunting

16 Devon Petersen

17 Mervyn King

18 Simon Whitlock (UP 1)

19 Daryl Gurney (DOWN 1)

20 Glen Durrant

Yes, oddly, Whitlock moves up a spot above Gurney, despite not playing in the event and Gurney picked up first round prize money. Weird how that works but it is what it is. The big mover lower down was obviously Callan Rydz who hits number 33, but now the hard work comes with the big names just above him.

Dropped a quarter of a unit betting wise. As mentioned previously, there wasn't too much value at all after the first round, especially given how chalky the first round was - I'd still take de Sousa again, only reason there was value there was people still don't realise just how good he is, and would obviously take Aspinall again over Anderson, as people still think he's an elite player, rather than someone who, this season, isn't even in the top 25 of scoring. No real qualms with any of the first round bets - if offered the same odds today I probably wouldn't take Noppert over Wright (it's still close), and I might tone down the Heta sizing a bit, but would still go Dobey over Cullen at odds against.

We're back on for another Super Series from Monday - worryingly, there's an extra event slotted in rather than further European Tour qualifiers. Quite how we're likely to get less Euro Tours this season than last is just a statement on how quite mad governments are nowadays - there should have been plenty of time to plan more than three events. That said, there simply isn't the calendar space, and that's the real issue. I've got to assume they go with ET3 on the weekend after the Grand Prix. There's no other space to put it. But what on earth do they do with the European Championship? Doing it on Euro Tour money was already a joke last year, but with even less events? That's not going to be pretty in the slightest. Then again, they're still holding the World Series of Darts finals. Madness.