Matchplay another great event
Just a break for some tin-pot WSOD events before majors majors majors
As we head into major season, the rankings are shaping up to make things interesting, enormous win for Rob Cross with £613k to defend this year with his incredible WC win 18 months ago, he hasn't exactly started the year lighting the ranking events up despite playing very well in TV events, but this puts him on ~£240k for the year with bombs of prize money up for grabs between now and the worlds and fortunes up for grabs at the ally pally. 40% if the way there is an amazing result, I think realistically given he'd have been looking at this year and thought, if I cashed for £400k this year hold my top 6-7 spot and on we go to 2020 with 1/3 of the money to defend and that looks a certainty now - the big danger for anyone with a massive portion of their money to defend in a calendar year is they have a bad one, slip down towards the bottom end of the top 16 start drawing Gary and Micheal early in tournaments get used to losing games early in tournaments and end up in the 20s where it's a proper scrap to get out. He's already put that to bed so it's onwards and upwards for Cross now and he's got a real shot of keeping his #2 spot now.
2 Rob Cross England £964,250
3 Daryl Gurney Northern Ireland £545,750
4 Michael Smith England £536,000
5 Gary Anderson Scotland £533,250
6 Peter Wright Scotland £466,000
7 Gerwyn Price Wales £424,750
In recent times the race for the worlds rankings wise has always been about the difference between 3rd and 4th/5th in the rankings, playing MVG in the final as opposed to the semi could potentially be a difference in £100,000 in prize money which is the same as the winner of most of the Majors this year will receive, and it's a pretty tense race now following Cross' result yesterday...
Rob Cross England £532,500
Daryl Gurney N Ireland £185,500
Peter Wright Scotland £150,750
Michael Smith England £76,250
Gerwyn Price Wales £74,750
Gary Anderson Scotland £73,500
Here's what each of them are defending between now and the end of the World Championships, and here's how it looks would the worlds begin tomorrow.
=2 Gary Anderson £459,750
=2 Micheal Smith £459,750
4. Rob Cross £431,750
5. Daryl Gurney £360,250
6. Gerwyn Price £350,000
7. Peter Wright £315,250
So Gary and Micheal are creepily in a straight shoot-out for their ranking position and Cross exactly £25k behind them, with MVG seemingly out of form and lots of £££ up for grabs could see any kind of movements in the rankings, a major win for Price or Gurney and there could be a 4th man in the fight.
Couple of mid table guys will be pretty steaming at their matchplay performances, Ian White will be utterly livid as he's just entered the top 10 after a 4 month spell of form where you'd e hard pressed not to have him in the top 5 but could only manage a second round, he really should be at the tail end of these tournaments where the ranking money really is, he effectively maintains his rankings purely on floor/euro events and its amazing how consistent he is but you simply cannot get yourself into the top 6 like this, and without TV credentials and rankings weight the premier league (for which he's ideally suited imo) will continue to allude him. Nathan Aspinall will be a little annoyed he couldn'y put a run here, with 0 money to defend every major that comes he's a real threat on the top 10, I guess after best part of £300k since regaining his card we can let him off one off-day vs a pretty inspired Mervyn King. Jonny Clayton has plenty to defend this year as he slides to towards the danger end of the top 16 and fell foul to a pretty average Keegan Brown, Adrian Lewis (who got a v bad draw admittedly) really needs to put some runs together but just cant as he and Cullen (who blew more chances than he'll get in the next couple of years) slip out of the top 16 again and the wilderness threatens anyone in that part of the rankings who starts to lose form.
You have to ask yourself how people like Dimitri Van Den Bergh, Jamie Lewis, Luke Humprhies cant get themselves into this tournament, it's a real who's who of darts this event and if you're not here then you're not really a big player for me, goes to show the competitive nature of the sport when these guys cant get into a 32 runner field. Barney obviously a sad ommission from the event on his swansong year, despite some fleeting promise throughout the year it looks like we'll likely not see him at the majority of the grand slams this year, the grandstand departure more of a timid extinction, the WSOD events are likely his platform to wave goodbye now.
Nice month off then its non stop euros and floor events which give the guys on the edge a chance to make a move in!
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