Austrian Darts Championship 2019 preview and schedule: Saturday 31 August, evening session

The last two Austrian Darts Open champions are in the field on the second evening of the Austrian Darts Championship.

Starting the evening's play is the pantomime villain of Friday's Austrian Darts Championship action. Keegan Brown dug deep to disappoint the partisan home support and limp over the line in his win against Hannes Schnier. Next up for him is a game where he'll settle into the underdog role. Nathan Aspinall will be all too aware of what the multiple-time Michael van Gerwen slayer is capable of.

One Austrian who did safely navigate round one was Rowby-John Rodriguez. His task is a tough one, for sure; Daryl Gurney will fancy a long run in Vienna. Following on is Mike de Decker, a narrow winner in a game against Josh Payne which was littered with missed darts at double. He'll want to tighten up the finishing to have a shot at Jonny Clayton, who lifted the title in his last visit to Austria.

The first half of the session ends with an intriguing clash. Peter Wright fiddled with sets while his form burned Down Under. Chastened by a couple of hasty exits, Snakebite needs to get back to the hot form he found before the World Matchplay. Dimitri van den Bergh, who scored brilliantly against Mark Webster, will be looking for chinks in the Scot's armour.

All the Austrian Darts Championship games, including Peter Wright's tussle with Dimitri van den Bergh, can be followed through our live score feature.

The game of the day will most likely come when Wright and van den Bergh vacate the stage - in a narrative sense, at least. First, there's the Austrian hero and darting Goliath, Mensur Suljovic. Vienna will be backing the Gentle raucously. But every Goliath has a David, and Suljovic's is precocious 17-year-old Adam Gawlas. The Czech prodigy pulled out all the stops to average 99 on debut and eke out a 6-5 success against Ross Smith. That was a big moment. Dumping out Suljovic in front of an Austrian audience would be a stunner of biblical proportions.

Luke Humphries performed well and pulled out a superb 11th leg to send Jamie Hughes packing. He'll fancy his chances against Joe Cullen, though the Rockstar will similarly back himself to come out on top, and set up a Sunday showdown with Wright or van den Bergh.

Michael van Gerwen has been crowned a champion in Austria three times, and as recently as May. With Austria getting a second European Tour event, Mighty Mike has a new tournament to conquer. Kyle Anderson played solidly and converted half of his darts at a double against Stephen Bunting on Friday. He'll need more of that against the tournament favourite.

Rounding things off are Darren Webster and Jeffrey de Zwaan. The former is determined to claw his way back into the upper echelons - not that he has fallen too far, even despite an injury-addled start to the year. De Zwaan was on his way to a fairly pedestrian win over Christian Gödl when he pulled out a moment of magic that almost brought yet another 2019 nine-darter. That final flourish could prove to be a catalyst for something even better on Saturday evening.

Austrian Darts Championship schedule

Day Two, evening session

18:15 Nathan Aspinall v Keegan Brown
18:45 Daryl Gurney v Rowby-John Rodriguez
19:15 Jonny Clayton v Mike De Decker
19:45 Peter Wright v Dimitri van den Bergh
20:15 Mensur Suljovic v Adam Gawlas
20:45 Joe Cullen v Luke Humphries
21:15 Michael van Gerwen v Kyle Anderson
21:45 Darren Webster v Jeffrey de Zwaan

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