Premier League Darts crosses back into England with Birmingham tonight's venue for tungsten tussles that could see a certain birthday boy go 3 clear at the top of the table, and could also see two of the field eliminated.
Said near-enough elimination will come in our opening match if St. Helens' beardy blubber Michael Smith loses to everyone's favourite unorthodox Serbo-Austrian Mensur Suljovic. After his run to the final last year, Bully Boy has had a dismal campaign and was awful on the doubles last week, whereas the Gentle was a bit better.
Two men who have tormented by the reigning champion the past few weeks then meet with bauldtism minor Rob Cross versus raging rugger roidlet Gerwyn Price. Voltage was absolutely AUTISM'd in Cardiff, whereas the Iceman impressed in front of his home crowd. A win for the Welshman would really close up the play-offs, but victory for the Englishman would see him close to within 1 point of the top spot.
The masters of breaking down on stage follow with midlife crisis """Scot""" Peter Wright in a must-win game against Northern Ireland's Daryl Gurney. Snakebite's comedy thin points last week saw him sink without a trace, whereas Superchin stayed in a scrappy game with Mensur but got nothing out of it. Another equipment change for Clown could see him gone, especially if results go against him.
Closing the evening is the birthday boy against the current second-best PDC major winner with reigning champion Michael van Gerwen against 2009 champion James Wade. Mighty Mike made it a barely comprehensible 30 Euro Tour titles on Easter Monday, and all before his 30th birthday today! The Machine beat MVG back in Exeter in what was a terrible run for the Dutchman, and will need to repeat that showing if he's to inflict the third defeat of this year's PL on the Autism Express.
Coverage starts at 7:00pm BST on Sky Sports Action.
>Tonight's fixtures (7:00pm start, all matches best of 14 legs) Mensur "DIE MEISTER, DIE BESTEN" Suljovic v Michael "Snackpot 2.0" Smith Rob "BAuLDtism" Cross v v Gerwyn "Gurning" Price Daryl "Sweet C4-line" Gurney v Snakeshite James "The Meds Are Back In Town" Wade v MvGOAuTism
So as mentioned in the OP, it was the German Darts Grand Prix in Munich this past Easter weekend for the latest stop on the European Tour. Gerwyn Price withdrew before the event started which shook the draw up quite a bit, putting Danny Noppert in as a ET seed for the very first time.
Only two PL contenders played on the opening Saturday with vastly different results as Newcastle's Chris Dobey was stunned 6-3 by Austrian jobber Michael Rasztovits, but Middlesbrough's Glen Durrant delivered another 6-1 thrashing of his fellow ex-BDO "star" Jamie Hughes.
Sunday's Round 2 saw Daryl Gurney edge past Kyle Anderson 6-4, followed by James Wade surprisingly losing a last leg decider to Kim Huybrechts. Michael Smith's torrid season has no stopping, as he was whitewashed by rapid Ricky Evans. Peter Wright had £25k wiped off the Order of Merit thanks to his 6-4 loss to Ross Smith. The story of the weekend though was breakout Czech star in Karel Sedlacek. Evil Charlie (no, really) stunned #2 seed Ian White who somehow missed 32(!) double attempts in his 4-6 loss, and then followed it up on Monday with a 6-5 victory over lil' Darren Webster.
Monday also saw Michael van Gerwen ALMOST blow it in the quarter-finals against Ted Evetts. Having averaged well over 100 against Krzysztof Ratajski and Stephen Bunting in his first two matches, MVG was horrendous throughout and relied on misses from Super Ted to go 5-2 up. A stunning 128 on the bull eventually saw Evetts take it to a last leg, but MVG hit a 12 to avoid embarrassment. He however embarrassed Rob Cross, an earlier conqueror of Gurney and Mensur Suljovic, who was raped 7-1. Incredibly, van Gerwen's final opponent was one Simon Whitlock, who beat Smith, an awful Joe Cullen and Sedlacek's conqueror Max Hopp (from 4-6 in that one) to face the world #1. MVG went 5-0 up in 64 darts and although the Wizard got it back to 6-3, two weird finishing attempts (bull-T15-bull in leg 10 and T19-D13 in leg 11) saw him lose and gift #30.
>Mighty Mike made it a barely comprehensible 30 Euro Tour titles on Easter Monday, and all before his 30th birthday today! Now that's what I call autism
Lucas Wilson
>"""Scot""" Peter Wright
Scot? I don't get it. What did I miss?
Brody White
Wright plays under the flag of Scotland despite having lived most of his life in England. He was born there, so it's not like a certain "Geordie Australian" who only lived down under.
He's doing alright on the floor atm but then so are about 40-50 others. Cant see anyone who's not on stage tonight winning that given the format of the later stages, but i fancy one of the contenders or someone like Cobra did last year to cause a few upsets. Hopefully an early exit for clown
in other news, the miner seems to have gone from goldenarrers
Leo Foster
>implying implications
Nicholas Price
SOLID CAHMAAAAN
Hudson Davis
Has Gezzy been huffing crack before tonight?
Isaac Howard
Honest question here lads: why do every crowd dislike Price so much? I can understand Philth and there was some other who groomed a teenage girl too or something. What has Price done?
AFAIK this has been going on for longer than this match against Gando Guess so. Just seems odd to me. I know he's the exact opposite of beerbelly drinking boomers sitting in their pubs which I associate with darts but the crowds are pretty young I'd say.
James Wood
It's where it completely ramped up though.
Isaiah Hernandez
>7-7 >7-7 Bravo
Xavier Garcia
>Cross already admitting defeat in the chase for top of the league Fucking idiot.
