The action commences with Danny Noppert taking on Joe Cullen and the Dutchman is taken to win this match.

Cullen is out of sorts and really struggling to find any consistency. He’s won just ten of his last twenty-five matches and comes into this on the back of four consecutive defeats including a crushing loss to Pavel Drtil, a local qualifier in the Czech Darts Open at the weekend.

This is not just a short-term slump either it’s pretty much been season long apart from the odd glimmer of hope here and there. His seasonal average is just 90.99 which is way lower than those at the top of the tree who are averaging between 95 and 100.

Noppert if anything is the opposite of Cullen as he’s ultra-consistent. He has a win percentage of 64% for the season and is averaging an impressive 96.82 for the calendar year. He was thumped 6-0 the weekend by Mike De Decker but the Belgian smashed in a 100+ average so that will go down as a bit of an outlier.

‘The Heat’ as the Aussie is known has been on fire lately. He’s registered seven 100+ plus averages in his last ten matches and came as close as anyone to defeating Mike De Decker at the World Grand Prix.

He’s a dual winner on the floor this year and was Runner-Up in the New Zealand Darts Masters on the World Series during the summer. He was thwarted 6-3 by Luke Littler at the weekend but ‘The Nuke’ powered in a 116.51 average against him.

A big TV title is surely next on the agenda for ‘Damo’ and there are signs his TV game is about to go to that next level. He reached the Semi-Final of the UK Open earlier this year and it seems to be a case when and not if in terms of securing a TV success.

Pietreczko has not quite built on his rising status of last year and at times this year, it has been a struggle for him. He’s suffered with injury fairly recently and comes into this with only seven wins in his last twenty matches including being whitewashed on three occasions. Heta should have too much for him.

If there was a performance that demonstrated Luke Humphries is the best player in the World it was his defeat of Luke Littler at the Czech Darts Open this past weekend.

Littler was playing some mind-blowing stuff and looked unplayable but Humphries who averaged 100+ in all of his five matches in securing the title, stopped him in his tracks and beat him 7-4 in the Semi-Final with a 108.56 average.

‘The Asp’ who suffered an injury issue in August returned to action in mid-September but remains on a slowly upward curve as opposed to being at the top of his game. He’s played 24 matches since the Matchplay and he’s won 11 of them, just 46%.

The pair have met once since Aspinall’s return and it was Humphries who won 6-4 with a 99, always holding sway after establishing an early break. A similar scenario beckons here.

It’s been coming for a couple of years but Mike De Decker might just start living up to his moniker of the ‘Real Deal’ if his recent form and Grand Prix success is anything to go by.

That major success wasn’t a fluke either. He defeated a strong calibre of player with victories over Damon Heta, Gary Anderson, James Wade, Dimitri Van Den Bergh and Luke Humphries to secure the title. The Heta match aside – which was a 50/50 type of game – he bossed all the other encounters.

His consistency carried on this past weekend as he reached the Quarter-Finals of the Czech Darts Open and registered three-ton plus averages in the event. Rock on the other hand suffered a shock defeat to the local qualifier Pavel Drtil, 6-5.

In the aforementioned Grand Prix, the Northern Irishmen also suffered a first-round exit to Ryan Joyce, winning just two legs. He’s struggled on TV this year in general with a string of early exits and De Decker represents good value in a match the bookies are making a 50/50 call but arguably should have the Belgian shorter.