Sporting Life
Who will win the first tournament with a crowd since March?
Who will win the first tournament with a crowd since March?

World Series of Darts Finals: Free darts betting tips, preview and predictions for the ITV4 major in Austria featuring MVG, Gerwyn Price and Peter Wright

By Chris Hammer
Darts
Sat September 19, 2020 · 4y ago

Our Chris Hammer is back to preview this weekend's televised World Series of Darts Finals, which takes place in Austria.

Recommended Bets: World Series of Darts Finals

The culmination of the globe-trotting World Series tour that didn't happen this year concludes this weekend in Salzburg, but don't let that take any shine off a much-needed televised event for darts fans.

Although only one of the five 'majors' that we'd already have seen by this point in a normal 2020 has been lost - the Champions League of Darts - we've missed out on five World Series weekends while the staged events on the streamed European Tour make up 10 of the 23 tournaments that we're down overall so far.

The PDC have deservedly received a huge amount of credit or being at the forefront of bringing live sport back into people's homes and keeping their players active over the past few months of gradual recovery thanks to the Home Tour, Summer Series and this week's Autumn Series, so it's no surprise to see them taking things up another notch by welcoming in a crowd for the first time since March.

Sure, it will be a reduced attendance at the Salzburgarena, where the fans won't obviously be as raucous as they would have been in normal circumstances, but it's definitely at a start and I think it's safe to say the players who featured in the World Matchplay and Premier League will prefer this environment over the piped-in crowd experience.

None more so than Michael van Gerwen and Gerwyn Price, who both suffered shock early exits in the Matchplay and failed to qualify for the Premier League play-offs as they struggled to adapt to post-lockdown conditions before finding some title-winning form at the Autumn Series.

The Welshman topped the five-day Order of Merit with £24,250 after winning the last two tournaments with a cumulative average of 100 while second-placed MVG managed to pick up one winners' cheque of £10,000 to bolster his overall takings to £16,750 in a largely inconsistent week which saw him thrashed 6-0 on one day by the much-improved Devon Petersen.

Summer Series table-topper Peter Wright won the first event last Saturday - having beaten MVG 7-6 with a 109 average in the semis - but despite promising to win all five, he 'only' managed to scrape £4,500 across the next four days to finish in third position. That said, he averaged 106 in one of his last-16 defeats only to be undone by Joe Cullen's magical 112.2.

Although the world champion is the only player in the 'big three' to have made the Premier Play-Offs, nobody can dispute their grouped presence at the head of the betting although you could question whether Price should be as big as 6/1 third favourite.

The two-time Grand Slam of Darts champion may well have got a bit lucky in his first final of the week when Devon Petersen missed four title darts but having shown nerves of steel to make the African Warrior pay, he came back the next day to win six more matches and average over 103+ in five of them, including a high of 107 against James Wade.

His lowest was 98.7 in his concluding 8-5 triumph over the dangerous Krzysztof Ratajski, who has only lost three of his nine PDC finals since the start of 2018. Two to Price and one against Wright.

Price was also finding his gears towards the end of the Premier League regular season but despite beating MVG and Wright as well as thrashing Gary Anderson twice, he was ultimately made to pay for his slow start. Those who did make the top four will be mightily relieved about that, even though they perhaps won't admit it.

I must say I'm actually more tempted than I've ever been to back van Gerwen at odds of around 9/4 despite his fear factor waning and his lack of consistency - by his own standards, of course.

The defending champion loves competing in Europe, he loves a crowd and also loves this tournament having won four of its five stagings. Of course most of those were at his absolute pomp but he's still performing at a very high level, which only looks worse than it is because of what we've grown accustomed to seeing from him.

It was inevitable that the chasing pack would eventually close the gap and he'd struggle to win the vast majority of titles on offer but perhaps in the medium to long term, this could all push him on to even greater heights from a performance point of view. After all, he's still only 31 and remains one of the hardest working professionals on the planet who handles pressure brilliantly.

Van Gerwen hit 10 ton+ averages in the Autumn Series - a tally that was only bettered by Gerwyn Price's 13 - while he may well have been heading to Austria had his mark of 103 been enough to beat the talented Jose De Sousa (101) in Wednesday's quarter-final.

Price and MVG are in opposite halves of the draw (scroll down for full draw and schedule) so I really wouldn't be surprise to see the pair meet in their third televised final in the space of 10 months and first since that incredible UK Open.

Interestingly, the next best performing player in terms of 100+ averages is Cullen with six and he ended the Autumn Series as the only Englishman in the top 10 on the Order of Merit, positioned a lofty fifth on £11,000.

The Rockstar would have finished as high as third had he won Sunday's final against Australia's Damon Heta, who ended up fourth overall, while he also lost to his close friend Devon Petersen in Tuesday's semi-final just hours after beating Wright with that 112.2 average.

Cullen's other victims during a stellar week included Price (6-5), Nathan Aspinall (7-6), Daryl Gurney (6-5) and Rob Cross (6-2), and as you can tell from most of those scorelines, he's holding his nerve in deciding legs.

Only Petersen (75), Wright (68) and De Sousa (67) hit more than his 57 180s so you have to wonder if Cullen's qualification for this tournament - which was achieved on the eve of the Autumn Series - is perfect timing in a career that has promised so much yet rarely delivered its full potential on TV.

At the World Matchplay he banished the demons of his 10-0 drubbing against Ian White a year earlier by edging him 13-12 in a nail-biting clash before losing out 11-9 to the eventual champion Dimitri Van den Bergh.

The 31-year-old won his maiden European Tour event around this time last year when defeating Glen Durrant and James Wade en route to stunning Michael van Gerwen in the European Matchplay final so he'll be relishing another opportunity to shine on the stage.

He's as big as 100/1 in places but that mainly due to the fact he plays Gerwyn Price if he gets past his tough opening-round clash against World Matchplay quarter-finalist Vincent van der Voort.

However, with Price as my main selection, I'm happy to include Cullen as something of an each-way insurance policy should he be the one to melt the Iceman.

My final outsider for the weekend is Ratajski, who is too big to ignore at 33/1.

As previously alluded to, the Polish Eagle has won seven PDC ranking titles since the start of 2018, including one this year when he beat Ian White in a deciding leg, and that tally has only been bettered in that time by MVG (36, including 10 non-ranking), Wright (12, including three non-ranking), Price (10), Gary Anderson (8) and James Wade (8).

Apart from Price, all of those players have won lucrative non-ranking events that Ratajski wasn't involved in while he only competed in 10 PDC events overall in 2018 due to not having a tour card yet won three of them!

Sure, only one of those came in front of a small crowd at the Gibraltar Darts Open last September but he's built up more and more experience over the past couple of years of competing in front of fans that I really don't think it's as big a deal as some may lead you to believe. And in any case, this will only be a small quiet crowd and hardly daunting.

I tipped Ratajski for the World Matchplay at a big price and it was all going so well with impressive victories over Jermaine Wattimena and Gabriel Clemens, only for him to lose 16-13 against Michael Smith in the quarter-finals.

Nevertheless, he came back to form during the Autumn Series with a run to the last final, while he also lost a quarter-final against Michael van Gerwen on the opening day.

He opens up against home favourite Mensur Suljovic tonight and if he gets past that he has a World Matchplay rematch with Smith. Not an easy start by any stretch of the imagination, but all placements in the draw are fraught with dangers.

World Series of Darts Finals: Draw & tournament bracket

Seeded players entered in round two on Saturday and play winners of Friday's first round.

Click here for Sky Bet odds

  • (1) Michael van Gerwen v Glen Durrant/Dimitri Van den Bergh
  • (8) James Wade v Jeff Smith/Fallon Sherrock
  • (4) Michael Smith v Krzysztof Ratajski/Mensur Suljovic
  • (5) Rob Cross v Simon Whitlock/Steve Beaton
  • (2) Peter Wright v Ian White/Damon Heta
  • (7) Daryl Gurney v Cody Harris/Dave Chisnall
  • (3) Gerwyn Price v Vincent Van der Voort/Joe Cullen
  • (6) Nathan Aspinall v Harry Ward/Darius Labanauskas

World Series of Darts: Schedule

Friday September 18 (1900 BST)
First Round (Best of 11 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4 (2000 BST)

  • Harry Ward v Darius Labanauskas
  • Ian White v Damon Heta
  • Cody Harris v Dave Chisnall
  • Vincent van der Voort v Joe Cullen
  • Jeff Smith v Fallon Sherrock
  • Krzysztof Ratajski v Mensur Suljovic
  • Glen Durrant v Dimitri Van den Bergh
  • Simon Whitlock v Steve Beaton

Saturday November 2 (1900 GMT)
Second Round (Best of 11 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4

  • Eight games

Sunday November 3
Afternoon session (1300 GMT)
Quarter-Finals (Best of 19 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4

  • Four games

Evening session (1900 GMT)
Semi-Finals (Best of 21 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4

  • Two games

Final (Best of 21 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4

  • Winner SF 1 v Winner SF 2

World Series of Darts Finals Prize Fund

  • Winner £70,000
  • Runner-Up £30,000
  • Semi-Finals £20,000
  • Quarter-Finals £15,000
  • Second Round £7,500
  • First Round £5,000
  • Total £300,000

World Series of Darts Finals: Past winners

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