World Matchday of Darts: the young talent of Littler, Gary Anderson or Peter Wright ends

Last Saturday, one of the most prestigious tournaments in darts, the World Matchplay, kicked off. Here 32 players are fighting, most of them are in the top 30. So quality matches are guaranteed. And even in the very first rounds, where several favourites for the victory have competed against each other.

• Luke Littler, Peter Wright and Dave Chisnall, to name a few
• The first part of the eight-way final has already been played
• The English (not only) dominate this tournament

Several big names missed out on the eight finals

The aforementioned first round offered very interesting matches, especially in the lower part of the pool. There Michael van Gerwen and Luke Littler, two of the biggest favourites, ran into each other. MVG, the world number two, defeated his younger opponent 10-6 and secured his place in the eighth round, where another Englishman, Joe Cullen, awaits him.

A clash that was also worth watching was Michael Smith’s match with Gary Anderson, a legend of the sport. But Bully Boy took the Scot 10-5 and, as expected, went on to advance. As expected Luke Humphries, Dimitri Van den Bergh, Chris Dobey, Nathan Aspinall, Gerwyn Price, Ross Smith and Stephen Bunting also progressed.

The Clayton – van Barneveld and Cross – van Veen matches are also worth mentioning. Neither of the Dutch players succeeded in either, although van Veen came very close when he embarrassed Cross and lost only in the last possible sudden death league. Van Barneveld, another darts legend, lost to Clayton 10-7.

The surprise came in the Chisnall and Wright matches. The former played against Krzysztof Ratajski, who handled him too smoothly 10-2 and the seventh seed ended up in the tournament. Peter Wright didn’t fare much better either, losing to world number 20 Andrew Gilding 10-5. Ironically, both winners will face each other in the next round, the eighth round.

Half of the semi-finals past

At the moment, half of the semi-final matches have already been played. Humphries took Bunting 11-7 and Van den Bergh sent Clayton home. The shock was the elimination of Iceman Price, who could not keep up with Ross Smith and lost 11-9. There was a surprise in the next match too, which was taken care of by James Wade.

Wade already showed excellent darts in the first round, beating world number 12 Noppert 10-5. He was not stopped by his compatriot Nathan Aspinall, who was close but eventually succumbed 11-8. Wade will now meet R. Smith.

The dominance of English players, and not only in this tournament, is interesting to note. A total of 16 players are competing here, which is half of all players. There are 11 in the eight finals and at least 5 in the quarter finals.

Source: PDC