Will Schindler’s World Championship adventure end before Christmas?
For the first time in his still young professional career Martin Schindler will start as seeded player into a PDC World Darts Championship. After a really good year in 2022 the 26 year old made it into the top 30 of the ranking and therefore had a walk-through in the first round. So for the first time ever “The Wall” is in the second round of the most important darts tournament of the season. However, the native of Strausberg has not yet won a regular match at the Ally Pally.
That should change at best on Friday evening. Then Martin Schindler will have to face Martin Lukeman. According to the odds, the German is the favourite, although his English opponent should not be underestimated. Lukeman has also played a very promising season and among other things reached the final of the German Darts Grand Prix.
Even though the 41 year old has never won a World Championship match in London’s Alexandra Palace or will be on the biggest darts stage in the world for the first time, we definitely expect “Smash” to play a close match. Looking at the ratings it might even be the better approach to bet on the Englishman between Schindler and Lukeman. Given the subjective 50/50 assessment, the odds on the supposed underdog have more value.
Martin Schindler – Statistics & current form
For Martin Schindler, December 2022 will always be remembered. Just over a week ago, the 26-year-old and his wife Denise had their first child together. But instead of changing nappies, the young father of a family first took off to London to break an ongoing curse.
For the fourth time after 2018, 2019 and 2022 (we are currently at the 2023 World Darts Championship) Schindler will stand at the oche at a World Championship. He has never won so far. In all three of his previous attempts he was eliminated in round one. Last year, for example, “The Wall” lost 0:3 against his training colleague Florian Hempel. On Friday, the young man from Brandenburg will again face a complicated task.
When will Schindler get rid of his nervousness?
The number 29 seed will face Martin Lukeman in the first match of the evening session. The two professionals have already crossed paths four times. Twice with the better end for the German, but twice with a win for the 41-year-old Englishman, who also won the most recent direct duel in June with 6:2 legs.
So we are all the more surprised when we look at the odds on the two-way market before the second round match Schindler vs Lukeman. The Twitch streamer, nicknamed “The Wall” in reference to the Berlin Wall, is quite clearly favoured, although his successes in the calendar year 2022 were rather due to smaller tournaments at the Player Championships. He reached the final round four times, but only reached the final once. The 26-year-old failed to win a tournament.
One cannot get rid of the feeling that the world number 29 is not able to show his absolute top performance on the biggest stages of this world, in the most important matches. This is exactly why we would refrain from predicting the German between Schindler and Lukeman
Last matches of Martin Schindler:
Players Championship Finals
27/11/2022 – Rob Cross 10 – 6 Martin Schindler
26/11/2022 – Martin Schindler 6 – 5 Chris Dobey
25/11/2022 – Martin Schindler 6 – 4 Vincent van der Voort
Grand Slam of Darts Group D
15/11/2022 – Rob Cross 5 – 4 Martin Schindler
13/11/2022 – Martin Schindler 5 – 3 Adam Gawlas
Martin Lukeman – Statistics & current form
Although Martin Lukeman with 41 years is far from being a young gun in the darts scene he will be part of the Darts World Championship for the first time. The reason is his very good year 2022 which brought him up to position 41 in the Order of Merit. Consequently the Watford born right hander got a feasible draw in round one.
Lukeman only lost three legs against Yamamoto from Japan and in the end won 3:0 in sets despite not hitting a single 180. Ten 140s and 25 shots of 100+ points nevertheless underlined his scoring power, which goes hand in hand with a passable checkout rate of 33%. Still, given those numbers, it’s not an option for us to make a prediction between Schindler and Lukeman on who will throw more maximums on Friday night.
Will Lukeman be underrated by bettors?
Interesting instead are potential bets on a win by “Smash”, as the 41-year-old likes to be called in the scene. It is a fact that the number 41 of the world has played many good tournaments this season.
At the German Darts Grand Prix Lukeman reached the final and lost there only against Luke Humphries. The bald man, who now lives in the darts stronghold of Newbury, delivered very passable performances at the World Grand Prix or the World Matchplay as well.
As the World Championship debutant proved more often than his upcoming opponent that he can throw his best darts in important TV tournaments as well, we don’t agree with the assessment of the best bookmakers and assume the more attractive value between Schindler and Lukeman in the betting odds in favour of the Englishman. If that is too much risk for you, you can also consider handicap bets (+1.5/+2.5)
Last games of Martin Lukeman:
World Darts Championship
17/12/2022 – Martin Lukeman 3 – 0 Nobuhiro Yamamoto
Players Championship Finals
25/11/2022 – Dimitri van den Bergh 6 – 5 Martin Lukeman
Players Championship 30
05/11/2022 – Martin Lukeman 3 – 6 Mickey Mansell
Players Championship 29
04/11/2022 – Martin Lukeman 5 – 6 Ryan Meikle
European Championship
27/10/2022 – Ryan Searle 6 – 5 Martin Lukeman
Martin Schindler – Martin Lukeman Direct comparison / H2H balance
Four matches have been played between the two Martins so far. With two victories each, the head-to-head record is completely balanced. However, both of the German’s victories came by a very narrow margin of 6:5. The last direct duel in June 2022, on the other hand, went clearly to the Englishman with 6:2. Now Schindler and Lukeman will meet for the first time in set mode, which, as is well known, brings with it different laws.
Martin Schindler – Martin Lukeman Tip
With Gabriel Clemens, a German has already made it into the third round. Martin Schindler now wants to follow him and still be represented in Alexandra Palace after the Christmas holidays. But he will need a strong performance in his second round match against Englishman Martin Lukeman, who caused a sensation time and again in 2022 and who is only twelve places behind “The Wall” in the ranking.
We therefore expect a completely balanced and contested duel in which we would rate the chances more like 50/50. However, because the odds on the 26-year-old German are lower between Schindler and Lukeman, we would go more in the direction of the Briton, who has even more to show in major tournaments than the newly minted family man.
We therefore bet on a win for “Smash” before the match between Schindler and Lukeman and receive attractive top odds of 2.37 at Bet365. We choose five units as our stake and wish all our readers and our loyal community a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
