The quarter finals of the World Matchplay begin on Thursday evening when the action returns back to the top half of the draw for two compelling looking matches inside the Winter Gardens with semi-final spots at stake.
We have the last two winners of this tournament on show on Thursday as well as the most successful player of the current generation so if we are not treated to an exhibition of amazing darts here we might never get one.
Peter Wright vs Dimitri Van den Bergh
The opening quarter final of the tournament is a repeat of the final of last year as Peter Wright takes on his good friend Dimitri Van den Bergh over the best of 31 legs for a place in the semi-finals on Saturday evening.
Wright had an inconsistent first six months of the season but like class acts do he has found his game with the big tournaments on the horizon an although he struggled to put Krzysztof Ratajski away in the second round, his performance in that match was extremely encouraging as he continues his bid to make a successful defence of the title. Van den Bergh has been showing good stuff for a while having won the last two World Series events and he hasn’t really slackened off here. The finishing of the Belgian this week has been little short of sensational and we know he can score strongly so he is entitled to lay down a real strong performance here. This should be a close match which makes me think there will be ample time for Wright to cover his 9.5 180s line. He hit 10 of them against Ratajski in 24 legs and it is hard to believe this one won’t have that many legs and maybe even a few more. Wright also made seven in 14 legs in the first round and looks to really be finding his groove on the 60. He knows he’ll need all the 180s he can get here so the even money that he reaches double figures once again looks good to me.
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Michael van Gerwen vs Nathan Aspinall
The second quarter final of the night is a repeat of one of the matches in this round from a year ago when Michael van Gerwen takes on Nathan Aspinall in what should be another tasty contest with the winner facing whoever comes out on top earlier in the evening on Saturday.
Nobody really knew what to expect from van Gerwen when the week began and he was terrible in the opening round by his lofty standards, however he was much better in the second game and got better the longer that match went on which suggests that his injury situation is a thing of the past. Aspinall came into this tournament in good form and is clearly using motivation of being written off to fire him up this week. I don’t necessarily think Aspinall will fail in this match but at the same time I just think the format might count against him. He is a player who plays to a consistently high standard but van Gerwen can produce bursts of brilliance and over a 31 leg match you would imagine he’ll find a couple of those and if they are at the right time he may well pull away. The only way Aspinall wins this in my eyes is if van Gerwen misses a host of doubles and I don’t see him missing enough. When they met in the last eight last year it was 6-4 at the second break and MVG won 10-5 from there for a 16-9 win. Aspinall might keep it a shade closer than that but I expect the Dutchman to have three legs in hand when he crosses the finish line.
Tips
Back P.Wright – Over 9.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back M.van Gerwen (-2.5 legs) to beat N.Aspinall for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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