Can Wright, Clayton or Wade Claim a Second Ladbrokes Darts Masters?
The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) may have delayed naming the full field for the Premier League but with a simple system of inviting the top-24 players in the Order of Merit, the Ladbrokes Masters starting lineup and draw have already been announced.
Peter Wright won the Masters in 2020 just four weeks after landing the World Championship. Can he repeat the double in 2022? ©Lawrence Lustig/PDC
Broadcast live on ITV, the competition begins on January 28th. It will be played over three consecutive days in Milton Keynes Marshall Arena. The venue has played host to the Masters every year since 2015. In 2021, due to Covid-19, it was staged behind closed doors. Crowds are back in 2022.
Gerwen and Gerwyn Looking to Recapture Their Form
Michael van Gerwen monopolized this tournament between 2015 and 2019, but the Dutch former world number one had a woeful 2021. Failing to win a TV major last season, his misery continued into the 2022 World Championship where he was forced to withdraw from the tournament after contracting Covid-19.
Coronavirus also cost Gerywn Price his place in the 2021 Premier League. The 2021 World Champion did claim the Grand Slam of Darts in November, but the Welshman did not dominate the sport in a way that looked likely at the beginning of the year. His elimination from the 2022 World Championship at the quarter-final stage was a tame way of relinquishing his crown.
Smith’s Long Losing Run
Peter Wright eventually took the 2022 world title as he had done in 2020. Interestingly the 51-year-old won the Masters four weeks after his 2020 triumph. Will he do the World/Masters double once again in 2022?
Many believed Michael Smith would win the World Championship final and pre-match the bookies could barely separate him and Wright. But on the night his finishing deserted him. Wright was a convincing winner.
Smith’s scoring was spellbinding throughout the competition and he recorded the tournament’s highest three-dart average of 106.3.
At 9/1 in the Masters ante-post betting list, Smith will have plenty of fans. However, the St Helens-based player has contested every ranked televised major since 2014 and he has never won one.
He has also played a large number of non-ranked televised competitions where he has also failed to lift a trophy. Beaten in all seven televised finals he has contested on the main tour, the only victory on Michael Smith’s CV is the 2013 World Youth Championship.
Smith is not the only player with apparent confidence issues. Dave Chisnall joined the PDC tour in 2011 and he has been a top-10 ranked player for much of that time. But he has never won a major and he has been beaten in five finals.
The Winning Thread
Winning was not a problem for Jonny Clayton in 2021. Aged 47, but still a relative newcomer to the tour, he broke into the big time by winning the Masters 12 months ago.
An additional three tournament victories followed – the Premier League, World Grand Prix and World Series of Darts Finals – and Clayton finished the season eighth on the Order of Merit.
James Wade won the Masters in 2014 and is a multiple televised major winner. ©Lawrence Lustig/PDC
James Wade is another that can get the job done. Never one to produce high averages, he has still won a remarkable ten televised majors and he has been a finalist in 14 others.
A run to the semi-finals of the World Championship – whitewashing his quarter-final opponent – will have done Wade’s confidence the power of good and, as a previous winner of the Masters, he could easily make a deep run in 2022.
Strategizing From Both Ends of the Draw
Clayton and Wade are both housed in the top half of the Masters’ draw. At 8/1 (Paddy Power) and 33/1 (Unibet) respectively, they can both be backed with a small downside and sizeable potential financial upside.
But Wright, 5/1 found through our Betfred review and housed in the bottom draw bracket, is the standout bet. For years he was a perennial bridesmaid, winning just one of 15 televised finals between 2014 and 2019. Now he is a win machine that has taken eight of the last nine major finals he has contested.
Wright’s first-round opponent – and as a top-8 ranked player he enters the tournament at the second-round stage – will be either Dirk van Duijvenbode or Simon Whitlock. Success there will take him to within two victories of another final appearance.
Outright Winner Odds
- 9/2 Gerwyn Price, Peter Wright, Michael van Gerwen
- 6/1 Jonny Clayton
- 13/2 Michael Smith
- 16/1 Gary Anderson
- 25/1 Dimitri Van den Bergh, James Wade, Jose de Sousa
- 28/1 Nathan Aspinall
- 33/1 Rob Cross, Ryan Searle
- 40/1 Dave Chisnall, Joe Cullen, Krzysztof Ratajski, Luke Humphries
- 50/1 Brendan Dolan, Daryl Gurney
- 66/1 Dirk van Duijvenbode, Mervyn King
- 80/1 Gabriel Clemens, Stephen Bunting
- 100/1 Ian White
- 100/1 Simon Whitlock
*Prices courtesy of Ladbrokes – sponsors of the 2022 Masters.
