Challengers can stay close; GRAND SLAM ITV4, 1pm.

PROVEN stayers Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld will welcome the extra few furlongs in Wolverhampton tonight but that doesn't mean adversaries Tony O'Shea and Kevin Painter won't get the trip in the Grand Slam of Darts quarterfinals, writes Steve Davies. The last eight of the Grand Slam means best-of-31 legs and Ladbrokes have Painter in receipt of three-and-a-half legs against Barney at evens and O'Shea getting eight-and-a-half legs off Taylor. That's a decent 11-10 chance.

Clearly Taylor is playing superbly well but the BDO's No. 1 player has no reason to fear a whitewash.

Bear in mind that Taylor has lost once this week already and his second-round match against Colin Lloyd was on a knife-edge at 4-4 until The Power turned up the heat.

O'Shea is a more consistent performer than Lloyd and the longer distance will enable him to get into the game. Yes, he'll be broken, but he will also hold plenty of throws because he is a huge scorer.

Silverback was hugely impressive in sweeping his way through a difficult group which included Lloyd, Colin Osborne and Brian Woods and at the end of a very successful year he'll be confident he can give Taylor a tough time.

Painter is a big-occasion player, as he proved when he beat Barney 4-2 in the Ladbrokes.com World Champ-ionship two years ago.

They have already met in the round-robin phase - the Dutchman won that 5-4 - but Barney has been inconsistent this week as he battles a few demons. Mervyn King let him off the hook and it was only when he had gone in front that he started to put his foot down.

Painter needs to get an edge in the early legs and clearly has the game to stay competitive.

Recommendations T O'Shea +8.5 legs 4pts 11-10 Ladbrokes K Painter +3.5 legs 2pts Evs Ladbrokes