The semi-finals of the World Matchplay take place inside the Winter Gardens in Blackpool on Saturday evening as we play down from four men to the two who will compete for the Phil Taylor Trophy on Sunday night.
Four top class players have made it through the early part of the draw and with every passing day the quality in this tournament has continued to rise and there is nothing to suggest that we won’t see that continuing on Saturday.
James Wade vs Jonny Clayton
The opening semi-final of the night comes from the top half of the draw as two men who have been to a World Matchplay final before look to get there again when the former champion James Wade takes on the 2023 finalist Jonny Clayton.
The Welshman came into the tournament under a bit of pressure to deliver the goods because he was defending the money he won from making the final two years ago and with the rankings suddenly quite volatile around him it was important he went as deep as he could. To his credit, he has done that and will complete the job if he wins this match. Wade didn’t have any ranking issues because he was defending little money here, he just wanted to continue his love affair with this tournament and he has certainly done that. This should be a great semi-final between two men with plenty of experience of the longer formats, both of whom have played very well this week. There hasn’t been much to choose between the two at all this week. The key stats of nine dart average (the average with the first nine darts of the leg – the scoring visits) in their three matches so far read 113.38, 106.88 and 103.61 for Wade and 108.80, 105.56 and 103.86 for Clayton whereas the checkout rates have been 67%, 65% and 39% for Wade and 42%, 37% and 50% for Clayton. The finishing might be the difference here because they are very similar in scoring for the week. I hope that is the case because that will mean that my outright bet of Wade makes the final but these numbers are that close that I’ve got to think this will be a tight match and so over 29.5 legs, which means we are looking for a 17-13 score or closer, looks perfectly good to me.
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Luke Littler vs Josh Rock
The starter to the night doesn’t look too bad but the main course looks especially tasty as the world champion Luke Littler looks to move to within one win of emulating Luke Humphries and winning the title after landing the World Championship when he takes on a Josh Rock who is bidding for a place in his first major solo final.
Littler has lived a bit of a charmed life this week. He was exceptional in the opening round against Ryan Searle but there is certainly evidence that he peaked early because he was average by his standards against a Jermaine Wattimena who really should have put the world champion away from 7-2 up in a race to 11 and then Littler was made to work very hard by a game Andrew Gilding on Friday night. Rock has gone the other way. He was steady out of the blocks against both Ross Smith and Michael van Gerwen in the early rounds but he found his best form when he needed it towards the end of the clash with MVG and he certainly maintained that in arguably his best performance on a major stage when he took care of a very good Gerwyn Price in the quarter final. If Rock continues on that trajectory then he is going to serve it up to Littler here. Littler is going to need to improve his finishing to win this one because 32% and 43% in his last two matches leave him vulnerable. I hope that improvement doesn’t happen because I’m also on Rock outright and I’d love both outrights to make the final so I can relax on Sunday. In terms of a bet in this one, I like Rock to average more than 98.5. I’ve already mentioned a couple of times this week how the Littler scoring inflates the opponent average but we might not need it to be inflated here because Rock has nine dart averages of 111.49, 104.58 and 114.49 in this tournament and I don’t think that he finishes badly enough to drop too much and if Littler does improve then Rock won’t have the chance to miss many doubles. Rock has played two best of 31 matches in his career. In the 2023 Grand Slam quarter final he averaged 101.51 over 31 legs and 104.02 against Price on Friday night over 27 legs. That tells us he can sustain his form over these distances so his average to be over 98.5 looks good to me.
Tips
Back J.Wade vs J.Clayton – Over 29.5 legs for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Boylesports
Back it here:
Back J.Rock – Over 98.5 3 dart average for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back him here:
