Darts Betting Tips: Nebrida & Owen front Sunday’s boosted double

If you’d told anybody two weeks ago that Jeffrey de Graaf would be playing Paolo Nebrida in a last-32 match at this year’s World Championship, I don’t think anyone would have believed you.

However, both fully deserve their place in the post-Christmas action - Paolo came through a nail-biting five-set match against Jim Williams, beating him in a deciding leg. He followed that up with a stunning straight-sets win over Ross Smith which certainly raised a few eyebrows. Nebrida nailed a scintillating 82 per cent of his doubles in that victory, similar here will surely make him very tough to beat.

Jeffrey pulled off arguably the biggest shock of the tournament so far, which is saying something given how many there’s been already, when he saw off Gary Anderson in straight sets - he too was outstanding on the outer ring, hitting 75 per cent of his doubles. In interviews, he said this was a surprise to himself and didn’t particularly fancy his chances against the Flying Scotsman, but he didn’t look flustered at all when he put himself in the position to get the job done.

This is unchartered territory for the pair and the most amount of money either of them have played for in a match so don’t be surprised to see some nerves there and perhaps not the most eye-catching of averages. I think this one could definitely have some legs in it - De Graaf has been priced up as a strong 3/10 favourite, I agree he should be the favourite but never that short. Only just over three points are separating their yearly averages, Nebrida is also up against lesser opponents on the Asian Tour than Jeffrey is on the Pro Tour which needs to be taken into consideration.

I’m not sure De Graaf will be too keen on the slower pace of his opponent Nebrida, a complete contrast to the rapid encounter he enjoyed against Anderson. I reckon the Filipino turns this into a bit of a slog and there won’t be much separating them, so I’m going in on the Asian through the handicaps, 4/7 for him to win two or more sets looks a nice bit of value.

It’s been a wonderful tournament so far for Robert Owen - the fiery Welshman has looked very decent with a pair of 3-1 victories over Niels Zonneveld and Gabriel Clemens respectively. He admitted himself he had to dig in a bit against Zonneveld but his win over Clemens was a big improvement and pretty impressive - Stack Attack averaged 99 in that one and looked at his best.

There have been signs from Owen over the year that he’s got this level in him, so it isn’t that big a surprise to see him reach the last 32 and perform how he has. His yearly average only sits just over two points behind that of Ricky Evans at 90.67, that’s despite playing most of his stuff on the Challenge Tour this year which is of course a lower level than the Pro Tour.

Ricky has been through the mill already to reach this stage, playing 10 sets out of a possible 10 so far, coming through deciding sets in both of his matches. He doesn’t like doing things the easy way and made hard work of getting past qualifier Gordon Mathers, before playing his part in one of the matches of the tournament so far against Dave Chisnall. He was better in that one - averaging 94 and 43 per cent on doubles is more solid and would stand him in good stead in this tie.

The inconsistency of Rapid Ricky could cause himself problems again here against an opponent in Owen who’s likely to average in the 90s. I can’t really separate the two so I’d have to say 8/13 for Owen to win three-plus sets looks the value in this one as I fancy him to take it all the way at the very least, if anything he has a bit more composure than Ricky which could prove the difference.

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