Sportingbet have inserted world number one Michael van Gerwen as 4/5 favourite for the Coral UK Open Finals. which takes place early next month.
The UK Open Finals, staged at the Butlin’s Minehead Resort in Somerset, is known as the FA Cup of darts for good reason. There is no seeding and amateurs, who have qualified through a series of tournaments across the UK, can find themselves on the oche alongside some of the biggest names in the sport.
The only concession to the world’s top 32 players is that they don’t join in until the third round but they could then find themselves up against a fellow senior pro and not a relative unknown.
This was the tournament in which new world champion Rob Cross first sprang to prominence two years ago. Having paid out just a few pounds to enter one of the qualifiers, Cross made van Gerwen pull out all the stops to beat him and then reached the fifth round last year before losing to eventual winner Peter Wright.
Snakebite is 7/1 with Sportingbet to successfully defend his title in Minehead next month with Cross at 5/1. With a sudden-death tournament featuring 128 players and condensed into just a few days, you would expect a few shock results but class has generally prevailed. Van Gerwen won in 2015 and 2016 but was forced to withdraw at the third-round stage last year. Wright was the beaten finalist in both years that van Gerwen won before taking first prize himself so the Scot clearly loves the format and there is £350,000 to play for this year.
Sportingbet Odds for Coral UK Open Finals
Michael van Gerwen 4/5, Rob Cross 5/1, Peter Wright and Gary Anderson 7/1, Corey Cadby and Michael Smith 25/1, Raymond van Barneveld 28/1, Daryl Gurney 33/1, Adrian Lewis 50/1, Dave Chisnall, Gerwyn Price, Krzysztof Ratajski, Kyle Anderson and Simon Whitlock 66/1
