Robert Catterson identifies the best picks in the first round matches, which get under way at 7pm on Friday.
Dennis Priestley v Kevin McDine
Darting fans don't have long to wait for the clash of the round as Friday's second encounter sees 'The Menace' lock horns with the talented Kevin McDine N/A.
Priestley N/A will be one of the fancies to de-thrown Taylor of his crown, but he hasn't been helped with a first round tussle against a player who was a quarter finalist at last year's World Matchplay in Blackpool.
Priestley, a winner of the World Championship back in 1994, has been in good form throughout 2009 in winning the US Open, Canadian Players Championship and the North-West Players' Championship so he's certainly the form choice here.
Don't expect this to be one-way traffic though, as McDine enjoyed his first taste of the World Championship last year with a first round win over Alex Roy but Priestley, ranked number 10 in the world, will be very hard to beat.
Perhaps surprising to some, this could be the clash of day two of the World Championships at the 'Ally Pally'. Given the contrasting rankings of both players, some may see this as a formality for 'The King', but it's Clark's N/A big tournament form which could surprise the world number five.
King N/A has had a decent 2009 without managing to win a title. The highlight was his semi-final success over Phil Taylor in the Premier League while he also reached the last four of this year's World Matchplay.
At last year's World Championship, King managed to go all the way to the semi-final stages. It's because of this form that some feel he is the player who poses the biggest threat to Taylor on the circuit at the moment.
But when King has proved to be vulnerable, it has nearly always been in his first round matches and particularly in the major tournaments. And he faces a player who has fared well in big tournaments in the past.
'Superman' reached the quarter-finals of last year's World Matchplay, when he looked capable of going all the way, and while he has been dumped out in the first round of the World Championships in the past three years, there's no doubt that he should have won both of his first round games in 2008 and 2009.
A winner of last year's Dutch Open, he's well capable of taking the scalp of King here so expect him to push the world number five all the way.
A close betting affair and this one is another which could go either way. There's not a lot between the players on overall form and following a disappointing three year spell, 'Walshie' N/A has really returned to form in 2009 by managing to rack up four tournament wins.
His victory in the Players Championship early in the year was the highlight, beating Taylor in the final. He then produced a monumental comeback to defeat Raymond van Barneveld in the UK Open East Midlands final after trailing 4-0 to the Dutch maestro. He also landed both Players Championships at Barnsley and Dinslaken and in another Players Championship in Gibraltar, he hit his first nine-darter
The bet of the entire first round is available in this match as the highly talented Michael van Gerwen N/A takes on Englishman Peter Wright. Van Gerwen is by far the more high profile of the two players and following a disappointing couple of years after his switch to the PDC circuit, the flamboyant Dutch thrower is now starting to show his potential.
In April of this year, he tasted his first victory on the PDC circuit when winning the Players Championship in Taunton to end his barren run and he has continued that form with good performances in various tournaments, most notably his runner-up finish to Colin Osbourne in the recent Players Championship in Irvine, where he beat the likes of Andy Hamilton and Steve Beaton along the way.
Peter Wright N/A has yet to reach the heights of van Gerwen and his best showing came with a semi-final appearance in the Las Vegas Players Championship. He has also reached the last 32 in the World Matchplay and Las Vegas Desert Classic but there will be only one winner here if an even 80% van Gerwen turns up.
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