The Sports Lowdown For All Your News and OpinionsIt’s finals day Sunday in the fifth European Tour event of the year, and there are some intriguing ties in the last sixteen.
The last sixteen will be played in the afternoon session, whilst the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final will be played in the evening session. All games are the best of eleven legs.
Michael Smith will be looking to make it to the evening session when he takes to the stage in the first match of the afternoon. He will face Steve Beaton, who comfortably brushed aside a lacklustre Mark Barilli 6-1. The number three seed beat Johnny Clayton 6-4 to get here.
Rowby-John Rodriguez saw off number six seed Vincent van der Voort 6-4 on Saturday evening, and will be looking to make it into the evening session on Sunday. However, he will face Terry Jenkins, who beat Jamie Lewis 6-4 in the second round.
Robert Thornton, like many others making it through to Sunday, survived a last-leg decider to make it this far as he eliminated Thomas Seyler yesterday. Next up for ‘The Thorn’ is Ian White, who beat the in-form Mickey Mansell in the second round 6-4.
Peter Wright averaged 103.6 in his 6-0 whitewash win on Saturday over Matt Clark, and will be fairly confident of maintain the same level of quality and consistency going into his third round match with Stephen Bunting, who won five consecutive legs to beat Jamie Caven 6-3 in the second stage.
Brendan Dolan knocked Robert Marijanovic out of the competition with a leg-leg win in Riesa, and he will come up against Dave Chisnall, who whitewashed Matthew Edgar to make it through to the third round.
Daryl Gurney beat Simon Whitlock 6-5 on Saturday and played superbly against the Aussie hitting five 180s and 60% on the doubles in a dramatic win. He faces Premier League player Kim Huybrechts in the last sixteen who saw off Cristo Reyes in a last-leg shootout.
Young Max Hopp continued his fine form yesterday with a great 6-3 win over Mervyn King, and he will certainly be aiming to go all the way to the final on Sunday. His next challenge is a match against Justin Pipe, who won against James Wilson 6-5 on Saturday.
Michael van Gerwen survived a huge scare as he beat William O’Connor in a match where O’Connor took the World Number one to a last-leg decider in the second round. The unbeaten Dutchman, who is yet to lose on the European Tour this year will come up against Benito van de Pas in the third round on Sunday afternoon.
Here is the order of play for the quarter-finals in the evening session:
Smith / Beaton v Rodriguez / Jenkins
White / Thornton v Wright / Bunting
Dolan / Chisnall v Gurney / Huybrechts
Hopp / Pipe v van Gerwen / van de Pas
