Moving into day two of the Grand Prix, there is no obvious choice for a game of the day, with encounters like Dobey-Wattimena, van Veen-van Duijvenbode, and Bunting-Gilding all potentially being the standout darts ties. Despite this, I have gone for Gary Anderson and Damon Heta to be the game of the night.
Damon Heta comes into Leicester having recently picked up some form, reaching the Semi-Final stage in three of the last six European Tours. The Aussie #1 is in need of a big run in a major some time soon, having not make a last 16 since the UK Open in 2025, over 18 months ago.
He has historically struggled in the double-in format, never winning a game in his five previous appearances, but with the short length he could craft an opportunity tonight if he gets on top of Anderson from the start.
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His previous defeats have come at the hands of James Wade, Joe Cullen, Ryan Searle, Mike De Decker and Luke Woodhouse, having lost 2-1 on all five occasions. It feels as though the “Heat” can cope with the format but just struggles to get over the line. Averages ranging from 85-95 show in ‘double-in’ are also not an issue, with the format taking somewhere between 7-10 points off a players average.
Gary Anderson comes into this week with little knowledge of where he’s at. The Scotsman played a couple of European Tours 3-4 weeks ago, reaching the Final in Budapest before losing to Cameron Menzies in Round 1 in Prague, but this is all we’ve seen of him since the World Matchplay.
It would be easily to predict the Scottish #1 is in good form, because he often is, but like Heta he also struggles with this format. He has reached a final in 2016, and a Semi-Final in 2014, but has only reached the Quarter-Finals once in the last five years. It is comfortably his least successful of the SkySports majors.
The Scotsman has a 12-month doubling rate of 40.86%, pretty good but not as good as the 41.42% from Heta. Stats that make for a tight game, but doesn’t lend itself to the pair struggling to get off very often.
Anderson leads their tight head-to-head record 4-3, having won their last two meetings. However, it’s worth noting that they have only met once in over three years, in a ProTour Quarter-Final in April 2025.
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Their only big stages meetings came on the World Series of Darts between 2018-19, when Heta was just a regional qualifier. Anderson won the first two of these games, but Heta did get the better of him in the Quarter-Finals of the Brisbane Darts Masters in August 2019, their most recent stage encounter.
The winner of this match up takes on either a struggling Josh Rock or debutant Niels Zonneveld, making for an interesting section of the draw.
Images: PDC
