What a weird day - mediocre scoring, missed doubles a plenty, some insane checkouts (if you've not seen leg 11 of Pratnemer/Troppmann, do that now before continuing to read this post) and a contender for miscount of the season with Ratajski completely fucking up a 143 out for reasons only he can know. That did for one of our bets, Hughes lost the other (the Kurz bet was voided) when he just couldn't score but somehow hung around. So not the start we wanted, but we go again in the last 32.
van Veen/Baetens - Andy wasn't great yesterday, will probably need to step up his game against Gian, and this looks like a typical 60/40 game. Andy's actually a touch longer than that, but with the relative performance yesterday that seems reasonable, not that there was enough edge even if he'd played a blinder.
Bunting/Troppmann - Kevin got through a real tussle yesterday, levels were not good however and it's hard to see how he's going to keep this remotely close. Heck, this could be a 6-0, and at a price of around 6/1, why not?
Heta/Taylor - Another early start for Dom, who looked decent enough against Szaganski, might not have shown enough to give any additional confidence but he's good enough at this stage to nick this one in three times. The market's already there though with him priced at 7/4.
Searle/Gurney - Feels like this could have been a last sixteen seed match not that long ago, but it is what it is, Daryl didn't drop a leg against Kantele, Marko missing a couple of doubles but Daryl otherwise not being threatened. Ryan is projecting significantly better - 70/30, and while there's a little bit of a consistency thing, I don't think it's enough to shift it so that we don't get a bet at the price offered. 0.25u Searle 4/6
Dobey/de Graaf - Jeffrey looked pretty much par for the course in a 6-4 win over Gilding, which really hurt the latter's Matchplay chances but he's still OK for now, but he should be outclassed here. Dobey's projecting nearer 80% than 75%, so 0.25u Dobey 2/5
Chisnall/Woodhouse - Luke put in an alright performance, at least after a little bit of a slow start, which might have done for de Decker's Matchplay chances and secured his own. Will need to improve in an all-Harrows match with Chizzy, but he's got a decent chance with the projection of 60/40 being tighter than I thought it'd be. He's already at 11/8 though which seems harsh on Dave, but I guess it's fair.
Smith/Rydz - Callan got a bye so the one thing I really wanted, i.e. a recent read, we don't get. Ross is clearly the better player, projects to win two in three, the market has those thoughts as well, so we move on quickly.
Pietreczko/Doets - Kevin was on pretty early against Blum, made a bit hard work of it but got through, hopefully that's just a bit of rust that's now been shaken off. Ricardo isn't a bad seed to come up against, and I cannot separate the two of them. The market's thinking Doets here, but 13/10 isn't quite enough to fire on Pietreczko. But it's close.
Noppert/Bates - Owen got one of the shocks yesterday with a win over Joe Cullen, not looking too bad at all and comes into a similar feeling sort of opponent in Noppert, but this is definitely a tougher one and Danny is up near 80% in the projections. 2/7 is listed and that looks just about perfect to me.
Cross/Smith - Michael needed every leg to get past Wade, but he did which has opened up the Matchplay for a lot of people on the fringes, just needs them to step through. This one isn't as tight as I thought it would be, with Rob projecting a shade over 60%, so I think there's enough on Coralbrokes to go with it, 0.25u Cross 17/20, Smith's game was good but it wasn't anything hugely better than what we'd expect so no concerns there.
Price/van Duijvenbode - Dirk got past a really up and down Gabriel Clemens, who had a red hot start to the game then just lost scoring and doubling while Dirk did his thing and rolled off five straight legs to take it. Price is a tough one and it's a statement of relative levels that Dirk is not even at 30% for this one. 5/2 on the Aubergenius is pretty darned accurate.
van Gerwen/Slevin - Dylan won through what was frankly not a pretty match, and if that level continues this one could be over very, very quickly - Slevin is projecting at south of 15%, so the 1/6 you can get on Michael is fair. Heck, could be another 6-0. 8/1 is kind of tempting...
Schindler/Sedlacek - Karel was one of the standout players with a fine mid match run, couple of small blips against Dennant but this was somewhat close to his best. Schindler's a tough cookie to crack though and Sedlacek isn't even at one in three for this, pricing of 4/9 on the home nation favourite looking extremely reasonable.
Humphries/van Barneveld - Raymond looked extremely solid, but was still made to work by Ratajski and needed missed match darts and a counting catastrophy to get over the line, if that did go 5-3 I don't think he comes back from there. He's got a puncher's chance but that's it, Luke's so much better the projection starts with an 8. 2/7 might be a small understatement of how much better he is right now.
Wright/Edhouse - Ritchie just keeps going on doing his thing, had little trouble with Dueckers in a 6-0 win but was pretty darned sloppy in doing so. Will need to tighten things up significantly against Wright and it does feel like a game where he knew he was going to win, so I'm happy to call this a blip and will return to normal service today, which would put this game at a pure flip. That's just where things are right now. Ritchie is actually the tiny odds on favourite. How times change.
Rock/van den Bergh - Dimi's last on again after a routine win over Ryan Meikle, who started slowly and, one good fifth leg aside, didn't up the pace to where he could handle the UK Open champion. He's not without chances, this one rates close, a 55/45 sort of game but very much in Rock's favour, he is projecting as a small favourite so it looks like everything's in order here.
So just the three bets in this one, be back later for the last sixteen.