Tonight sees the last eight starting their play offs in this year’s Grand Slam of Darts after what’s been a first class week of top notch darts so far. Your final eight men are; Dave Chisnall, Glen Durrant, Michael Smith, Peter Wright, Adrian Lewis, Gerwyn Price, Michael van Gerwen and Gary Anderson.
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So far, the two to beat, performance wise at least, have been Gerwyn ‘The Iceman’ Price and Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright, the latter of who absolutely destroyed world number two Rob Cross on Wednesday evening. The Iceman, on the other hand, won all his group games before making light work of Darren Webster on Thursday as he looks to defend his title.
A look ahead to this weekend’s action
Tonight’s action gets underway at 19.15 on Sky Sports Action when Dave Chisnall steps out against Peter Wright. Both players enjoyed dominant victories in their second round matches and both are looking like something close to their best. Ryan Harrington was Chizzy’s 10-3 victim, the same score line that Snakebite inflicted on Rob Cross.
Seemingly settling down on one set of arrows, Wright wasn’t required to play at his best level to beat Voltage, who faded as the match went on, which is good news for Snakebite’s energy levels. Wright goes into tonight’s match the favourite at 8/11 with Betway, but as well as he’s playing right now, Chizzy’s 11/10 is tempting, especially given Snakebite’s knack of screwing things up for himself.
These two are followed up to the oche by a game that could become a grudge match as there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of love lost between Michael Smith and Glen Durrant for their quarter-final showdown. Their feud stems from Smith’s outspoken views on whether or not Duzza should be competing for the BDO when he has been a PDC man for the past eleven months.
One week ago, in the first round, the pair met with Bully Boy running out the 5-3 winner. Now, they meet again with neither player looking their best in midweek wins over Daryl Gurney and Gabriel Clemens. Smith, the world number three, has yet to win a major title and with each passing tournament there is greater expectation on him to end his drought. Having won once already, there would be little-to-no reason to abandon Smith at this point though. He is 8/11 to win tonight’s match, while Duzza can be backed at 11/10.
Tomorrow, Gerwyn Price takes on Gary Anderson in another grudge match after these two famously fell out in last year’s final, a final that The Iceman won. He’s looking good again and few would back against him here, especially following his 10-1 defeat of Darren Webster.
Anderson, on the other hand, looked to be struggling in his 10-8 comeback victory over Robert Thornton, requiring six match darts before finally stumbling home. The Iceman is 4/6 against The Flying Scotsman’s 6/5 and with good reason.
Michael van Gerwen goes in the last match of the round as the three-times world champion takes on a two times world champion Adrian Lewis. It very nearly wasn’t though as MVG had to fight back to claim this victory after falling behind against Ian ‘Diamond’ White on Thursday night.
Diamond, who had never made it past the quarter finals of a televised event, couldn’t even reach the quarters. This was after soaring ahead but letting himself down on the doubles, missing 22 in total, allowing the best in the world back into the match to win 10-7.
His opponent is former world champion Adrian ‘Jackpot’ Lewis, who came from behind at 9-6 to beat James Wade 10-9. It was hard on Wade who at one point had a 9-6 lead and was firmly in charge of the match.
The Machine missed his bull shot for the match, which let Jackpot back in to win 10-9 and reach his first major TV quarter final since 2017. Mighty Mike is 1/9 to win the match, which is pretty steep but any money spent on Lewis’ 11/2 would still feel wasted.
Outright betting at Betway is as follows; MVG is the odds-on favourite at 4/5, Gerwyn Price 7/1, Peter Wright 7/1, Dave Chisnall 9/1, Michael Smith 9/1, Gary Anderson 10/1, Glen Durrant 14/1 and Adrian Lewis 40/1.
Friday, November 15 (7pm)
- Dave Chisnall V Peter Wright
- Michael Smith V Glen Durrant
Saturday November 16 (7pm)
- Michael Smith V Glen Durrant
- Michael van Gerwen V Adrian Lewis
Sunday November 17
- Semi-finals
- Final