Gerwyn Price has won the two qualifiers for this week’s Cazoo European Championship and is chasing a unique hat-trick in Salzburg.
World No.1 Gerwyn Price, pipped by compatriot Jonny Clayton in the Grand Prix final on Saturday, is 3/1 to get back to winning ways in the Cazoo European Championship at the Salzburgarena in Austria.
Price won the two qualifying events – in Hungary and Gibraltar – for this £500,000 event and heads a field featuring most, but not all, of the biggest names in darts.
Defending champion Peter Wright and four-time winner Michael van Gerwen are Price’s biggest market rivals though Clayton, very much the man in form following his Grand Prix success, failed to make the cut for this 32-man tournament.
No Quarter Given with Price and MvG
The big news from the draw for the Cazoo European Championship is that at least one of Price and Van Gerwen won’t be making the semi-finals because they are seeded to meet in the last eight.
Seedings for this event are based purely on the two qualifiers and since Price won both, he’s unquestionably got the No.1 ranking. Van Gerwen, who reached the third round in Hungary and last eight in Gibraltar, is seeded eight.
The schedule for the Cazoo European Championship is here!
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Van Gerwen may well have to get past James Wade in round two simply to reach the quarter-finals and given that his form this year has been patchy at best – he has won just one tournament and was a first-round casualty in the Grand Prix last week – the ‘Green Machine’ is 9/2 to win this, behind both Price and Wright in the betting.
Wright Delight At Draw
Wright, who won this title 12 months ago, is in the other half of the draw to his two big rivals and just 7/4 to reach the final – and it’s easy to see why.
If the world rankings are your guide Wright will need to navigate a path past Florian Hempel, Mensur Suljovic and Simon Whitlock to reach the semi-finals and he can hardly complain about that prospect.
Snakebite was another big-name first-round faller in Leicester – undone in straight sets by Rob Cross – but he is a six-time winner in 2021, most recently partnering John Henderson to World Cup glory.
Can The Bells Ring For St Clemens?
Jose de Sousa is the 9/1 fourth favourite and it’s 20/1 bar that quartet which means a lot of very good players are being dangled at big prices. And we saw last week – when Stephen Bunting and Danny Noppert were surprise quarter winners at the Grand Prix – that there is real quality behind the big guns.
The second quarter is the one which doesn’t feature any of the big four and it’s where you will find the likes of Michael Smith, Krzysztof Ratajski, Nathan Aspinall and Noppert, amongst others.
It seems incredible that Smith is these days rated a 28/1 shot for a tournament like this, while classy Gabriel Clemens is the outsider in this quarter at 14/1. In such an open section, it’s a price that is well worth a second look.
* All odds correct at time of writing.