Michael van Gerwen is a worthy favourite to win his third Betvictor World Matchplay title in a row, says our darts expert Chris Hammer. But where does the value lie in the rest of the 32-man field in Blackpool?
By Chris Hammer
Player-by-player guide of the full field including predicitions
World Matchplay draw, schedule, TV guide & results
Day three scoreline predictions & best bets
PDC 2017 season calendar and tournament results
Recommended Bets: World Matchplay Darts
0.5pt e.w. Daryl Gurney at 80/1 (1/2, 1-2)
1pt Gurney to win the third quarter at 10/1
1pt Kim Huybrechts to win the second quarter at 17/2
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This time last summer, the ruthless machine that is Michael van Gerwen got his hands on one of the most prestigious trophies in darts for a second successive year after showing his rivals no mercy at the iconic Winter Gardens in Blackpool.
He brushed aside 15-time champion Phil Taylor 18-10 in the final to collect his 12th of an astonishing 26 tournament titles last season - which ended with his second world championship crown at the top of 2017.
The only major televised title he failed to land was the inaugural Champions League of Darts, when Taylor gained a measure of revenge, but he won the other nine in 2016 and so far this season he's retained the Masters and the Premier League.
That said, he was extremely fortunate to retain the latter after Peter Wright missed SIX match darts in a gripping final but I guess this just further emphasises the intensifying pressure he puts on his rivals on the biggest of occasions.
You could say he's not been quite as dominant on the PDC tour overall, 'only' landing 10 tournaments in total so far this season!
Wright, who is running him close with nine titles this year, has defeated him in two European Tour finals, Gary Anderson got the better of him in the Dubai Masters while injury meant he was unable to defend the UK Open.
In some of the other events he failed to win, the Dutchman was on the wrong end of some one-sided scorelines such as a 6-1 loss to Ian White and 6-2 drubbings to Steve Beaton and Rob Cross while the unheralded Willie O'Connor, Ritchie Edhouse and Darren Johnson also managed to beat him.
Basically, this is a long-winded way of saying he's not quite that same player he was last year and you could argue the gap between himself and the chasing pack hasn't been as obvious.
His leg difference of +32 in the Premier League regular season was impressive - albeit swelled by a 7-0 drubbing of an out-of-sorts Adrian Lewis - but that was 10 short of the margin he managed 12 months earlier.
Van Gerwen heads to Blackpool on a high having captured the inaugural US Darts Masters last weekend, although runner-up Daryl Gurney did him a favour by knocking out both Wright and Anderson during his World Series of Darts debut in Las Vegas.
You could say the slight weaknesses we've seen this season - especially those defeats in smaller events - are perhaps down to a drop in focus. Not only must it be so mentally draining to stay so close to your A-game for nearly every event of yet another year, he's also had much bigger things on his mind.
His wife Daphne is pregnant with their first child and of course such a huge life event such as this can affect anyone's professional ventures, and a darting winning machine is probably no different.
Also, those matches in smaller tournaments are best-of-11 legs where a bad start against anyone - and I mean anyone - can cost you dearly.
The format of the World Matchplay, however, lessens the chances of him being shocked, with the event beginning with best-of-19 legs first-round matches.
To get to six legs before MVG is hard enough but double figures (excluding the two set-play majors) has only been managed four times since the start of 2015. Once in the 2015 Premier League final when Anderson beat him 11-7, twice at the Champions League of Darts, with Taylor winning 10-4 and 11-5, and then finally when Wright led 10-9 in this year's Premier League final. But that still wasn't enough to beat him!
Stephen Bunting won't be able to do this in the opening round, neither will Simon Whitlock or Kyle Anderson in the next when 11 legs are required and by the time he meets the big hitters of Taylor or Raymond van Barneveld in the quarters, it's best of 31!
Click here for the full World Matchplay draw, schedule and TV guide
The Power was of course the last man to beat him at the World Matchplay in the 2014 final - but nobody needs reminding how much the landscape has changed since then.
Sure, 15-time champion Taylor has won five of their last eight meetings but the way he seems to struggle with mental and physical fatigue nowadays - as we saw in the Premier League semi-final against Wright - makes it hard to imagine he can beat his arch-rival to 16 legs. Bare in mind he'll already have had to battle past Gerwyn Price and Barney by this point.
Should the veteran Dutchman instead be the opponent, I can't see a different outcome. As great Barney is to watch as he plays to the crowd's tune, he's without a major win since 2014 and just doesn't seem to be able to retain his A-game for long enough.
On his day he's still a problem for anyone, but you can't rely on those days coming when you need them too.
So after that, MVG will have the winner of the second quarter to contend with - Dave Chisnall, Mervyn King, Kim Huybrechts, Alan Norris, a returning Adrian Lewis, Steve Beaton, Ian White or Rob Cross - and can you see any of those producing the consistent brilliance needed to win to 17 legs against a player so far above them in quality?
This is exactly why people have always said leg play is MVG's strength and pondered whether - until last January - set play could be his Achilles' heel. You can't merely rely on winning a handful of key legs in the same way to cause a huge shock.
Moving onto the final, most fans will expect him to come up against Anderson or Wright - the only two men in the world right now who could feasibly get close to him over 35 legs. But that's only feasibly. And 'just' getting close.
With Anderson and Wright available at 5/1 and 6/1 in places respectively, the only real value backing either now would come if MVG did suffer an earlier exit which I just can't see happening. And dutching them makes equally little sense: we'd be left with less than 5/2 about one of them beating MVG in the final, which is hardly much to get excited about come the event itself.
Click here for a player-by-player guide of the field, including facts & predictions
And if the Premier League Finals night prices are a guide, but remember these were shorter matches, - Anderson was 12/5 to beat MVG in the semis and Wright was 7/2 in the final - it must be worth taking a watching brief. In other words, if we assume MVG is in the final, the odds on backing his opponent then won't be much different.
In any case, while Anderson v Wright should be the second semi-final, I'm now going to explain why I think there's a potential joker in the pack who simply must be taken seriously at a time when his odds are bordering on disrespectful to his ability and promise.
Daryl Gurney (80/1 Sky Bet) is certainly no stranger to darts fans having made a breakthrough of sorts when reaching the semi-finals of the Players Championship Finals at the end of 2015.
The 31-year-old from Northern Ireland has since made a run to the World Grand Prix quarter-finals back in October and, more impressively, managed the same feat at the PDC World Championship, where he was eventually battered 5-1 by MVG despite averaging a highly respectable 98.52.
Gurney, who walks on to the crowd-pleasing anthem of Sweet Caroline, has subsequently grown in confidence on tour this year, reaching the UK Open semi-finals in Minehead before losing to eventual champion Wright as well as claiming his maiden ranking title in a Players Championship event in Barnsley.
Having broken into the world's top 32 for the first time last year, he's now climbed up to 16th thanks to his consistent form and there's only four players who have a better win percentage (73.50% from 117 games) than him in 2017 - MVG (87.83% from 115), Wright (80.70% from 151), Anderson (77% from 100) and Cross (76.98% from 126).
His five final appearances this year have only been bettered by MVG (15), Wright (13) and Anderson (9) while it's only that same trio who have reached more than his 10 semi-finals. He's even third above Anderson for quarter-final outings.
One of those five finals came on his World Series of Darts debut at the US Darts Masters in Las Vegas last weekend when the Northern Irishman produced a string of classy displays to sink both Wright and Anderson before falling just short against you know who.
Sure, it was no major but the packed crowd was electric and there was also the added pressures to impress the live terrestrial TV audience in the UK - which is clearly a big thing for players trying to make their mark in this ever-expanding game.
And he certainly did that. After holding his nerve superbly in a final-leg decider against Wright in the quarter-finals, he found himself 4-1 down against five-time major winner Anderson.
Lesser players would have rolled over but a stunning run of seven straight legs, as well as an average of over 100, saw him stun the world number two.
He went on to push MVG hard, leading 5-3 at one stage, but he ran out of steam against the ruthless Dutchman, who went on to win 8-6 for his 10th World Series of Darts title.
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Afterwards Gurney said: "He was too good for me today but I'm getting much closer. This is where I want to be and I think I've done myself a lot of favours here.
"There are a lot of big events coming up and this will give me a lot of confidence. When I get to a final I really want to win, so I'm not happy to lose but I've played well.
"I've got the game to beat them, it's just sometimes I let my nerves get in the way. I'm trying to get more confident under pressure, especially against the best players in the world."
Gurney is one of the heavier scorers outside of the Premier League stars and if he could just up his finishing percentage another notch then he really would be a force to be reckoned with at the very highest level.
It's only a matter of time - and we might only have to wait until next February - before he's recruited into that elite group of 10 and some eye-catching displays in Blackpool would go a long way to help seal that deal.
So why is he as big as 100/1?
Basically because he's in the same half of the draw as Anderson AND Wright, while his opening clash is a tricky one against another rising star of the game in Benito van de Pas - the 15th seed.
Should he come through that test - and he's more than good enough to - then he'll face Anderson in the second round but to me it's a blessing playing him the Flying Scotsman this early when it'll be best of 21 legs.
As gifted as Anderson clearly is - and boy has he backed it up with titles over a glittering career - he isn't immune from surprises as father time starts to take its toll. You only need to look back to his 10-9 defeat to Paul Hogan in the UK Open first round as a reminder of this while Ron Meulenkamp knocked him out of the Players Championship Finals in December.
If Gurney can overcome that big challenge then he'd surely be favourite to see off either Mensur Suljovic, John Henderson, Jelle Klaasen or Justin Pipe in the next round, which would also see him win the third quarter of the draw. That eventuality is 10/1 now, so I really think that's a price worth snapping up too.
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Anyone who has read my previews in the past will know I've been a backer of Wright, who has been on a crest of a wave this season, and I freely accept he'd more than likely defeat Gurney over 33 legs in a semi-final.
However, had SuperChin reached this point then he'd be operating at new heights performance and confidence-wise, so why not take the big prices each-way now?
Although there is a 100/1 still being dangled by Sun Bets, the each-way terms are 1/3 rather than 1/2. Of course taking the bigger price will work out for the best should he go on and win but it'll be less return should he 'just' reach the final. The choice is yours.
My final bet comes in the wide-open second quarter of the draw - but I'm going to keep this brief as it is tough to call.
Dave Chisnall, still waiting for a maiden televised major title, is favourite at 2/1 but he's lost in the quarter-finals four years in a row here and that price is too short for me given his inconsistencies.
Adrian Lewis is returning after missing the last few events to have surgery on a "painful health issue" and that might explain some of the reason why he's been well short of his best this season.
We may see the old Jackpot now that's he's pain free but I'm not going to take that chance until we see him play.
Cross, who has enjoyed a stunning debut season on the PDC tour with two Players Championship titles and a notable scalp of van Gerwen in the European Darts Open, is next in the running at 13/2 and that almost tempts me in.
This is just his second major having reached the last 16 at the UK Open - where he bowed out 10-6 to Wright - and I just wonder if he's ready to get all the way through to a semi-finals of such a big event.
One man who can - and is a big price at 17/2 to do so - is Kim Huybrechts (8/1 Sky Bet).
The Belgian didn't impress in this season's Premier League when failure to turn three early draws into victories put him under early pressure and then his attentions were understandably focused on his terminally ill mother.
The 31-year-old had reminded everyone of his talents at the UK Open where he averaged over 110 in a 10-1 win over Ted Evetts en route to an agonising quarter-final exit to Alan Norris while at the World Cup of Darts he managed an outstanding 121.97 average during a victory over Paul Lim.
That goes down as the second highest televised average of all-time - despite the fact it was only a first to four leg encounter - but it's time for such a talent to deliver more wins on the biggest stages.
He does have experience of reaching the latter stages of majors, even though you have to go back to 2014 for his last semi-final, while he's clearly used to the big-stage atmosphere which he thrives on.
This is the softest draw he could have hoped for and in truth any of these eight players - which also include Norris (16/1), Ian White (20/1), Mervyn King (20/1) and Steve Beaton (25/1) - will fancy their chances.
Posted at 2100 BST on 19/07/17.
The World Matchplay runs from Saturday July 22 to Sunday July 30 and is screened live on Sky Sports. Click here for the full draw, schedule and TV times.
