The third round of the PDC World Championship gets underway inside the Alexandra Palace on Saturday when two sessions of play keep the tournament moving in the penultimate day of action before Christmas.
The shocks kept on coming on Friday with another bunch of seeds being dumped out of the competition but now that the format goes up to the best of seven sets the better players should come to the fore from here on in.
Ross Joyce vs Alan Norris
The first match of the round sees the man who sent Simon Whitlock packing in round two in Ross Joyce taking on Alan Norris for whom the relief was clear to see after his win over Steve Lennon in the previous round.
Norris was taken all the way to sudden death against Lennon but I don’t think that would have been a bad thing for him. It could have been massive had he lost but he’ll feel right in the tournament now. Joyce is yet to lose a set in the competition but we should acknowledge that neither Anastasia Dobromyslova nor Whitlock had anything close to their best stuff against him.
Given the year that Norris has had you have to give him full credit for battling hard and coming through against Lennon and if that win and the lengthening of the format frees him up on his doubles a bit then I expect him to win this. Joyce will struggle to keep up with Norris in the scoring phase of the match so really this is all about Norris. I like him at odds against.
Dave Chisnall vs Kim Huybrechts
Given the amount of seeded players who have not made it to this stage one of the leading matches in the third round is the one between Dave Chisnall and Kim Huybrechts who are pretty familiar with each other having met on 17 previous occasions.
Chisnall leads their meetings 12-5 and will be looking to pick up another victory here but he is probably going to need to up his game on what we saw in the last round. To be fair to Chisnall he battled hard against Josh Payne and made it through which is all that matters. Kim Huybrechts though delivered the performance of the second round, averaging 103.26 in a rampant 9-0 in legs win over Daniel Larsson with a barrel load of 180s and some good finishing.
Both men hit six 180s in their second round wins and with the extra format I’ve got to think they will score more than that here. Realistically this looks like a match that is going to have six if not seven sets so we’re probably looking somewhere in the 25-28 legs scenario. That should be enough for two great scorers to deliver more than 14.5 180s.
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Daryl Gurney vs Jamie Lewis
The final match of the afternoon session sees two more heavy scorers going at it when Daryl Gurney takes on Jamie Lewis in the second all-seeded clash of the day. This will be their eighth meeting including their second one here.
Gurney powered past Ross Smith in the first round averaging more than 100 in the process while Lewis was taken the distance by Cody Harris, but to his credit after a poor year, he came through well enough with nine 180s, some good finishing and an acceptable average.
It is the 180s which interests me here too. The line is 13.5 but we saw in this tournament last year and indeed the other night that Lewis is pretty relentless on them when he gets going. Gurney is no stranger to banging in the odd maximum so this line could even be covered in five sets. Any more than that and it is likely to be smashed so it is the over for me here too.
Tips
Back A.Norris to beat R.Joyce for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back D.Chisnall vs K.Huybrechts – Over 14.5 180s for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with LeoVegas
Back it here:
WON – Back D.Gurney vs J.Lewis – Over 13.5 180s for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Back it here:
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