The first world champion of 2021 will be crowned inside the Alexandra Palace in London on Sunday night when rivals Gary Anderson and Gerwyn Price face off for the Sid Waddell Trophy in the final of the PDC World Darts Championship.
As well as the biggest prize in world darts, the winner of this contest will also trouser a cool £500,000 so there is plenty to play for in what has all the makings of being a really good final over the best of 13 sets.
Gary Anderson
The Scottish star Gary Anderson will be competing in his fifth world final in this match and although he wasn’t as impressive in his win over Dave Chisnall in the semi-final as he was in overcoming the challenge of Dirk van Duijvenbode in the quarter final, he more than got the job done. He still averaged 100 and hit a lot more 180s than he had been doing previously in the tournament which is encouraging for him in this final. I suspect he was waiting for Chisnall to hit top form to bring the best out of himself but that never really happened.
Anderson will be hoping that experience tells in this final because he is a past master at these huge matches. He goes in search of a third world title in this contest and has lost in two other finals so he knows how to peak on the big occasion. You sense from everything he has said this week that he is coming to the boil nicely and might well be ready to deliver his best darts in this final. If that is the case history tells us he will be hard to beat.
Gerwyn Price
As well as a first world title and a huge sum of money, Gerwyn Price is also playing for the world number one ranking in this final so it will be interesting to see if he can flourish and bring out his best darts or whether the weight of expectation and the pressure of what he can achieve weighs him down and shackles him. Unlike his opponent here he does not have the experience of the biggest night in the sport so he is relying on the TV finals he has been in to fall back on.
The one thing which can encourage Price is that he played his best match of the tournament in the semi-final. It was the first time in the event that he averaged over 100, helped massively by a regular churn out of ton plus finishes and some scoring which complimented that nicely. It wasn’t the complete performance from him though and there are still flat spots in his play which could cost him should they appear at the wrong times in this final.
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Head to Head
These two men have met 15 times in the past with Anderson holding a narrow 8-7 lead in those matches. When it comes to their TV contests though it is Price who has the edge with a 5-4 advantage. The two players have faced each other on four occasions in 2020 with both of them coming out on top twice. This will be the second time they have met in a televised final. Their first was the controversial Grand Slam of Darts final in 2018 which Price won 16-13 when the two men squared up to each other regularly.
Betting
I am with the outsider Gary Anderson in this match. I respect Price and I certainly wouldn’t be shocked if he wins this but he’s playing for an awful lot and that might just weigh him down enough for the Scot to take advantage. If you approach this final from a statistical standpoint then aside from extra 100+ checkouts Price has hit, there isn’t a whole lot between the two men so this one needs to looked at from a form and expectation standpoint.
Anderson has generally got better the longer the tournament has gone on. Earlier in the event he was ploughing in the 140s and finishing well while in the semi-final he hit plenty of 180s but the rest of his game suffered a bit. I expect him to put it all together here though and be very hard to beat. I don’t want to say that Price can’t rely on his ton plus finishing to get him through in this final but if it isn’t there it would leave a huge whole in his armoury. Price has just hit one or two too many flat spots for my liking in this tournament and when you consider this is the most pressure he’ll be under all competition I just think there is enough in the favour of Anderson to take him to win a third world title.
Tips
Back G.Anderson to beat G.Price for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
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