2021 begins with the quarter finals of the PDC World Darts Championship taking place on New Year’s Day, with the four matches being played out across two sessions of play as we play down to the last four inside the Alexandra Palace in London.
The afternoon session has two former world champions on show looking to progress through to the semi-final of the competition but out to deny them are two of the most improved players that the continent has to offer.
Krzysztof Ratajski vs Stephen Bunting
The opening quarter final of the competition sees the Polish star Krzysztof Ratajski going up against the 2014 BDO world champion Stephen Bunting over the best of nine sets where the winner will make it through to the last four of this tournament for the very first time.
That makes this a potentially life changing match for the pair of them which is likely to add some tension and no doubt plenty of drama to the contest. Both players have seen off some seasoned campaigners but Ratajski in particular has taken advantage of a lot of missed doubles against him. Simon Whitlock couldn’t hit a barn door and then out of nowhere in the deciding leg of their brilliant contest, Gabriel Clemens missed seven darts to knock the Polish ace out.
Going into his last 16 clash with Ryan Searle, I was worried about the ability to hit doubles that Bunting was having but that quickly became a non-issue. To be fair to ‘The Bullet’, Searle applied all sorts of pressure to his tops in the deciding leg but rather than let doubts creep in, the former world champion stepped up and nailed it first dart in a set in which he averaged 105 against the throw. That was one of four of the seven sets which Bunting averaged over 100 in to go with the 102 he averaged in the deciding set against Andy Boulton in the second round.
That tells us when the crunch comes Bunting is going up a level which hasn’t been the case with Ratajski. He missed a barrel load of doubles before falling over the line against Clemens in a match where he only averaged more than 100 in one of the seven sets. That highlights that Bunting is scoring better of the two and given that he is playing the better darts when it really counts I think he’s overpriced here.
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Gary Anderson vs Dirk van Duijvenbode
The second quarter final in the afternoon session sees the World Grand Prix finalist Dirk van Duijvenbode taking on the twice winner of this tournament in Gary Anderson with either Michael van Gerwen or Dave Chisnall waiting for the winner in the semi-final on Saturday evening.
Van Duijvenbode is fast becoming the story of the tournament for the way he is playing. He is the only player who entered in the first round who is still here and having seen off two former world champions to make it to this stage, he is largely playing with the house money from here on in, although he needs a win here to get into the top 32. He is still in the first year of his tour card though so that is going to come naturally in 2021 regardless of what happens here. What has been impressive is how van Duivenbode has held himself together in deciding sets against Rob Cross and Glen Durrant, when the experience both men have should have given them an advantage.
Anderson went into this tournament under the radar after a pretty ordinary 2020 by his standards, although perhaps we should have thought back to the World Matchplay where the same thing applied, but he got better with every match he played there before losing to Dimitri Van den Bergh in the final. There are signs that is happening this week too with him not only playing his best match against Devon Petersen in the previous round but getting better with every set he played in the game.
That is significant because if Anderson continues that progression he’ll get off to a swift start here whereas van Duijvenbode has started poorly in three of his four matches to date. He has got away with that so far due to the extra scoring power that he possesses but Anderson is up there with the best frontrunners the game has seen and he has the scoring consistency to go with the Dutchman, and take advantage of the misses that come along. The longer distance allows van Duijvenbode some room to start slowly and get back into the match but if he isn’t careful Anderson could be away and gone. I’ll back the faster starter and more experienced player to come through this one.
Tips
WON – Back S.Bunting to beat K.Ratajski for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Betfair
Back him here:
WON – Back G.Anderson to beat D.van Duijvenbode for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with 888sport
Back him here:
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