WDF World Championship predictions: PDC regulars a cut above

Free darts tips, best bets and analysis for the WDF World Championship at the Lakeside, starting on Saturday

Where to watch

Eurosport 2 & Quest, 1pm, Saturday

Best bets

C Menzies
1pt each-way 8-1 Betfred, BoyleSports

M Warburton
1pt each-way 16-1 Hills

K Hutchinson
1pt each-way 25-1Betfair, BoyleSports, Paddy Power

Preview

Darts is back at the Lakeside in the form of the WDF World Championship with 48 men bidding to become the first winner of the successor to the BDO event.

Welsh roofer Wayne Warren, the last winner of the BDO version two years ago, and Lakeside mainstays Martin Adams and Paul Hogan are in a field culled from any number of different sources.

It even includes players currently plying their trade on the PDC Tour and perhaps no surprise some of them, including Conor Scutt, Cameron Menzies and James Richardson, head the betting.

Those three are 90-average pros, which puts them a notch above most of the field, and are all in the bottom half of the draw. Menzies, who beat a lot of good players at Q School, is averaging 94 on the main PDC tour and has beaten Michael van Gerwen, Ross Smith, Mensur Suljovic and Jose de Sousa over the first couple of months of the campaign. That form is pretty impressive in this company.

The top half is wide open and features everyone from 15-year-old multiple JDC winner Luke 'The Nuke' Littler to 65-year-old multiple world champion Martin Adams.

Littler looks a star in the making but much the same was said of rival Leighton Bennett and it's a big step up from junior to senior so 20-1 about the child ace is a bit short.

Brian Raman is the top seed, although Wolfie may be too good for the Belgian in the last 16. Jim McEwan, a Challenge Tour winner in the PDC, is a better prospect but priced accordingly. Super smooth Mike Warburton, former Welsh Open champion and British Open semi-finalist last year, is better value at 16-1.

The women's event would have been a decent watch had Fallon Sherrock and Anastasia Dobromyslova been there. They aren't, and nor is PDC tour card holder Lisa Ashton, which leaves Mikuru Suzuki as the favourite.

She, however, is housed in the brutal top half also featuring recent Isle of Man heroine Beau Greaves – for whom there has been a fair bit of money – and evergreens Deta Hedman and Aileen de Graaf.

That makes the bottom half wide open and Corinne Hammond is an obvious each-way shot, but not as attractive as the 25-1 being chalked up next to sixth seed Kirsty Hutchinson's name.

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