Schedule and preview Saturday afternoon session 2021 Grand Slam of Darts

The 2021 Grand Slam of Darts begins on Saturday afternoon with Groups A-D beginning their opening matches at the Aldersley Leisure Village in Wolverhampton.

Stephen Bunting begins proceedings facing off against Ryan Joyce in Group D after both players came through the Tour Card Holder qualifier at the last set of ProTour tournaments.

Bunting has been in stellar form on TV with a recent World Grand Prix semi-final and with a best of a Quarter-Final back in 2014, he will be dreaming of matching his Leicester run down the road.

Krzysztof Ratajski and Martin Schindler then open a quality Group A with the last ProTour winner of the year facing one of the most impressive players on the tour this season.

It will be the first of a good run for Schindler who already is in the World Championship field by winning the German Super League and with Ratajski almost nailed on nowadays for a run on TV just without a final yet, this could hold the key to who potentially gets out of the group.

Mervyn King off the back of his blockbuster display in Amsterdam will hope for more heroics in Wolverhampton when he faces recent Development Tour champion and World Youth winner, Bradley Brooks.

While James Wade, a three-time runner-up will face Jim Williams who unlike before won't be representing the BDO and will be there as the Challenge Tour champion and a PDC Tour Card holder as of next season.

Before recent European Championship winner Rob Cross faces a potential barnstormer of a tie against dangerous Croat, Boris Krcmar.

Chris Dobey, who is a late replacement for Dimitri van den Bergh finishes the session against Rowby-John Rodriguez.

While it is the Austrian's little brother Rusty-Jake Rodriguez who will look to continue his brilliant year when he faces the major title winning machine, Jonny Clayton.

He qualified after winning the European Development Tour with a dominant run in a year which has also seen him qualify by right for the World Championship despite not being a Tour Card holder.

While Gerwyn Price who has skipped recent ProTour action has returned from some time away and will face Nathan Rafferty who will look to upstage the World Number One in their group opener.

As usual, the winners of the respective ties will face each other, while the losers will face each other in the round robin format.

Stephen Bunting v Ryan Joyce (D)

Krzysztof Ratajski v Martin Schindler (A)

Mervyn King v Bradley Brooks (B)

James Wade v Jim Williams (C)

Rob Cross v Boris Krcmar (C)

Jonny Clayton v Rusty-Jake Rodriguez (B)

Gerwyn Price v Nathan Rafferty (A)

Chris Dobey v Rowby-John Rodriguez (D)