3 minute read
The Premier League of Darts returns to Glasgow for night 3 of the 2024 edition of darts’ weekly televised event.
It's already become clear that this year's cohort is extremely competitive. World Champion Luke Humphries, a determined Michael Smith, the awe-inspiring Luke Littler and the ever-impressive Michael Van Gerwen look like the early front-runners, but the reality is that all the players seem capable of beating one another.
Van Gerwen won the last night in Berlin, and he opted to remain in mainland Europe rather than heading back to the UK for the first two Players Championship tournaments.
A rested, determined Van Gerwen will be hard to beat (11/4 night winner) , but he was pushed in all three of his games last week. With a quarter-final against Peter Wright, who reached the semi-final of Players Championship 2 and will be in front of a home crowd, Van Gerwen should go through as 1/6 favourite to 5/1 Wright, but a win of 6-4 (5/1) or 6-3 (4-1) should intrigue.
Van Gerwen or Wright will face Rob Cross (11/10) or Michael Smith (9/10) in the semi-final in what should be an intriguing match-up. Smith roared to victory on opening night and was only narrowly beaten by Van Gerwen in the final in Berlin – he should beat Cross, who has failed to average over 100 once in his three games since returning to the PL.
Of course, it's impossible to talk about darts these days without discussing the sensational Luke Littler, who captured headlines again as he won on his Players Championship debut with the first competition of the year – oh, and he hit a nine-darter on the way.
Such is his new found pulling power, that meant a Players Championship event became one of the leading stories in sports papers across the country – as was the news he was dumped out by Radek Szaganski in the Last 64 of the second event.
Second favourite for the night at 7/1, he will face Gerwyn Price as 7/12 favourite against the 6/4 Welshman who, if it wasn't bad enough having to deal with the crowd's attitude towards him normally, will also have to deal with the increasingly trademark whistles every player seems to get when they face Littler. It is something the PDC must contend with, but it won't be in time for Price.
In the other match on that side of the draw, Luke Humphries will face Nathan Aspinall. 'The Asp' (9/4) has failed to kick-start his PL campaign with two losses in two quarter-finals, while Humphries (4/11) is not in the impervious form he was when he won the World Championship and was extremely disappointing in the Players Championship events.
It means a bet on underdog Aspinall is not a bad choice, but Humphries is more than capable of turning it on to set up another re-match with Littler.
In either case, a Littler-Van Gerwen final could be on the cards again – and who wouldn't want to see the latest edition in this emerging rivalry.
