World Championship Darts - Day 12 Evening Session
Jamie Lewis was simply outstanding in beating Peter Wright on Wednesday - averaging over 107, hitting 13 180s and enjoying a 54% checkout %. He also won seven legs in 12 darts or less, making him a really tough nut to crack.
James Richardson should therefore be pretty fearful in ahead of this, and nearly 10pts separate the men on their averages this tournament so far (91.8 v 99.8). Lewis will surely thrive on the crowd and atmosphere in this one, and he comes into this knowing he won the only meeting between the pair in the last few years, beating Richardson in a Players Championship match in Barnsley in March.
3pts Jamie Lewis to beat James Richardson at 8/15
Phil Taylor v Keegan Brown is next on, and it seems improbably that Brown will be the man to stop the Power reaching at least the Quarter-Finals, where Gary Anderson may well be the opponent for the victor. The pair have met four times before, with the honours shared 2-2, but those matches were all at least three years ago and played over a short format.
At 1/14 in the match betting, the bookies aren't giving too much away here, and on balance you'd rather be with Brown at 10/1 if you had to back an outright outcome. The bases are also suitably covered in the 180s betting, with Taylor the marginal favourite, which corresponds closely to their long term averages.
The best bet here, given Taylor is a 1/12 favourite, is the match winning double to be double 16 - offered at 10/3 with Betfred. Taylor checks out 30% of legs on d16, so this should be a good deal shorter.
1pt Winning Double to be d16 in Taylor v Brown
It's a similar bet in the Gary Anderson v Steve West match, where a slight adjustment in the odds on the winning double haven't been enough to put us off backing d20 in this match.
Anderson is a hot favourite to win this match, unsurprisingly, and it's notable that Betfred still make d16 their 4/1 second favourite in the winning double market despite Anderson checking out just 4% of legs on that particular finish.
He's generally close to 35% on Double Top, so the 9/4 available still looks worth backing even if its not as long as usual.
4pts Winning Double to be d20 in Anderson v West at 9/4