Gurney/Chisnall - Pretty solid from Dave this. Feel that if Gurney wanted a realistic chance he needed to put away the second set from 2-0 on throw, and letting Chisnall break in the decider in seven visits is an issue. Was a good bit of rallying to get things level in sets, but then Chizzy was superb from there only losing the one leg and taking the rest in five visits.
Cross/Clayton - 4-0 might be a bit harsh, Jonny wasn't playing bad, he only really had the shot to take the four legs he did when Rob was a bit off. Every other leg he took out in five visits. Can't do a massive deal about that, other than hold your own legs in five more often than Clayton was able to do, which wasn't very often at all.
Dolan/Anderson - More steady stuff from Brendan. Gary just took two and a half sets to turn up, can't be doing that in a race to four sets. He did at least salvage set three and then looked very good, but Brendan then didn't really do much wrong in set six to get things to a decider, then Gary has eighteen darts to win legs 3-4 and gets neither. Whoops. That puts us further down for the tournament and I doubt we have the runway to get out of it, or even put too much of a dent into the deficit for that matter.
van Barneveld/Littler - This might be the best Luke's looked all tournament. Eleven of fourteen legs won in five visits or better (four were in four), extreme pressure on the ones that Barney was able to win, and was enough to secure my pre-tournament call that he would make the quarters. Barney didn't do much wrong in the slightest, he was just outplayed. Of course, with the opposite eighth being messed about by Dolan, and with the remaining players in the same half not being among, say, the top five in the world, there's every chance now that Littler gets to the final. Of course, the next one is the big one, as that'd sort out the tour card situation, have his worlds money stay on the balance sheet, and make any Kleermaker returning his card question moot (and, quite possibly, fuck over Steve Lennon in the process).
Humphries/Cullen - Think we've probably got our match of the year here. Cullen got out early, Humphries pulled it back, we get to 3-3, then we have missed match darts, Humphries looking like he's got it in leg 9 only to fuck it up himself in leg 10, then do what champions do - hit a four visit kill against the darts to win it in sudden death. Wow.
Quarters go tomorrow:
Dobey/Cross - Market is finding it very difficult to split the two, both played really well to this point and both are odds on. I'm finding it extremely tough to separate them, maybe Rob has the tiniest of edges and does have the advantage of having won one of these length games before, but it's not much and I can't see any value in going either way here.
Littler/Dolan - These odds seem a bit silly. Dolan's already beaten two better players than Luke in this tournament, and he's widely available at 4/1. Yes, there's an unprecedented amount of hype, and probably public money that is throwing this one off, but Dolan's got a clear one in three chance. Not one in five. 0.1u Dolan 4/1, but I'd wait until closer to the off as at least the exchanges will probably offer better value nearer to the time.
van Gerwen/Williams - Clear no play here. Williams is long odds against, as you would expect, but his projections at any time don't get to more than 15%, which is more or less bang on where his 6/1 line is. If you like Scott's game and relative chances, look to the handicaps, possibly the alternative handicaps - once you know who's won the bull.
Humphries/Chisnall - This one ought to be fairly competitive - Dave's won against a big name at this stage of the tournament before and has been playing really solid stuff all season - year long, I'd give him at about a 35% chance, bring it down to more recently when Luke's been on fire, and I'd stick it down to around 30%. With Chizzy being just shorter than 2/1, that's in the realms of about right and I can't see any sort of discernable play here. Maybe if you think previous matches have taken a lot out of Luke, I don't know. I won't be touching it though.
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