Champions League of Darts: Van Gerwen ready for Cardiff domination
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Darts returns to the BBC this weekend, with eight of the world’s top players set to battle it out for the Champions League prize.
The two day event will take place in Cardiff and feature a group format before semi-final and final knockout matches.
Ahead of the tournament it’s Michael van Gerwen that leads the betting at 8/11.
MVG missed the recent Australian Masters events following the birth of his first child.
But now the Dutchman is back and looking to claim his first ever Champions League crown.
Standing in his way is 9/2 shot Gary Anderson.
Anderson has endured some patchy form this year but returned to winning ways in Perth last month.
He’s without a major win in 2017, though. That’s despite reaching the semi-finals or better of six TV tournaments in the calendar year.
However, the form horse ahead of this one is Phil Taylor.
Now, that may sound like an obvious thing to say about a 16-time World Champion.
But Taylor rolled back the years to claim a first PDC Major since 2014 in July.
His World Matchplay success has fuelled suggestion that the Power can go on a roll of tournament victories before his retirement at the end of the year.
He’s a tasty 6/1 to retain the Champions League crown he first won last year.
Peter Wright is the last of the main challengers at 15/2.
Snakebite won the UK Open in March but has been too inconsistent since. We can’t see him taking the trophy here.
A better bet could be the 28/1 rated Adrian Lewis.
The 32-year-old looked sharp on his comeback from injury when making it to the semi-finals of the World Matchplay.
He’ll be well rested since then and could go well in Cardiff.
Meanwhile, outsider in the field Mensur Suljovic is worth a nibble each-way at 40/1.
The Austrian has the game to take on the big boys and looks well overpriced to reach the final at the very least.
He has the more favourable group and could go under the radar somewhat.
Click here for the latest Champions League of Darts odds.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing
