The quarter finals of the World Matchplay come to a close on Friday night when the two matches in the bottom half of the draw get played out as we determine who the semi-finalists will be in the second biggest ranking event of the year.
We saw the world number one and a former champion progress on Thursday evening and on Friday three more previous world champions will be looking to join them on what looks like being another great night of darts.
Michael van Gerwen vs Andrew Gilding
The opening match of the night sees the former winner here in Michael van Gerwen taking on the past UK Open champion Andrew Gilding in a race to 16 for a spot in the second semi-final on Saturday evening.
The bookmakers have this all about van Gerwen and it is hard to disagree with that. Gilding has had a good run in the tournament so far but he has taken out two players whose best days probably are behind them but certainly who are not in great form at present. He now takes on a van Gerwen who certainly in the first round got rid of someone in great form in Luke Littler and while he didn’t quite hit the same heights against Joe Cullen, there was always going to be a comedown from the first round because of the profile of that one. The question for me here is whether the first round MVG turns up and if he does then he should win this going away but I wouldn’t be convinced it does because this isn’t a high profile opponent and there might be an element of looking to peak over the weekend. That could keep Gilding close but I wouldn’t like to bet on it either way.
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Michael Smith vs Rob Cross
The last of the quarter finals might well prove to be the pick of them as two former world champions battle it out for a shot at the winner of the opening game of the night in the last four when Michael Smith takes on Rob Cross.
Smith has come through two top opponents so far in Gary Anderson and Chris Dobey and will be feeling good about his chances here. Cross has seen off a couple of capable victims to date in Gian van Veen and Ryan Searle and potentially made hard work of both but his scoring has been excellent in this tournament and the reason he has been pushed closer than he would have wanted is down to the quality the opponent has produced rather than anything to do with him. This should be a classic quarter final if both play to the level that they have been doing. I’m on Cross at 3/1 to win this having backed him for the quarter so I’m not going to get involved in the match betting again but I can’t avoid a swipe at the 16.5 180 line. Both quarter finals on Thursday evening sailed past this total and they were both won 16-10. I think this might be a few legs closer than that and these two are both better scorers than the outsider in those two matches so in a tight contest I expect them to throw at least 17 180s at each other here.
Tips
Back M.Smith vs R.Cross – Over 16.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Sky Bet
