Darts World Matchplay tips: Smith firing in 180s, Humphries and Van den Bergh slog it out
- George Dempsey
- 18 July 2024
The quarter-finals of the PDC World Matchplay at Winter Gardens get underway on Thursday night, as world number one Luke Humphries faces Dimitri van den Bergh.
It’s a race to 16 on Thursday night as the quarter-finals of the World Matchplay get underway in Blackpool, where Ross Smith will face James Wade, and Luke Humphries takes on Dimitri van den Bergh.
Both matches are likely to produce high averages, scores of 180s and some juicy checkouts.
Join us as we run through Thursday’s top tips.
Thursday’s World Matchplay tips
Humpries vs Van den Bergh: Over 27.5 legs
Ross Smith vs James Wade
Ross Smith is heavily favoured to claim this quarter of the draw when he faces James Wade on Thursday night, which is something we suggested he'd do in a recent preview.
The world number 13 blitzed Josh Rock in the opening round before seeing off Gerwyn Price, 11-9, in an upset win last time out.
On paper, James Wade has also gone well, beating Danny Noppert, 10-5, and seeing off defending World Matchplay champion, Nathan Aspinall, 11-8.
However, the Asp has struggled with injury and still made a game of it, and the Machine didn’t need to be at his best in the first round, winning at a canter with a 95 average.
Still, credit to James for taking chances when they come his way, which is something he does extremely well. Should Smith give him unexpected darts at a double, he will take them.
On the other hand, it’s hard to see Wade hanging in there if Smith is at his best. He fired in 13 maximums against Price, which is a number Wade can't match.
Despite scoring fewer against Rock, he averaged 99 and produced a checkout rate of around 70%. If he can bring those two performances together, he’ll win on Thursday.
Luke Humphries vs Dimitri van den Bergh
The standout tie of the quarter-finals pits the world number one, Luke Humphries, against world number nine, Dimitri van den Bergh. More than that, both players have been on fire.
The world champion produced averages of 108.76 and 102.34 in wins against Ricardo Pietreczko and Stephen Bunting, despite neither making him work for the win.
Van den Bergh made headlines as he delivered a glorious nine-dart finish, much to the delight of the Winter Garden crowd, who had witnessed eight in the previous 30 years.
That set him on his way against Martin Schindler, taking a 4-3 lead before motoring ahead to win 10-6. He was far less convincing against Jonny Clayton, but still got the job done.
Despite winning 11-6, the Belgian averaged just 0.13 more than Clayton, throwing an almost identical number of 180s, 140s and ton-plus scores.
Dimitri was far more deadly on doubles than the stats suggest, hitting checkouts of 68, 72, 88, 108 and 112, often leaving Clayton hanging on a one-dart finish.
He’ll need to hit plenty of checkouts in that range to keep this close, but we expect him to up his game suitably. We’re not expecting Luke to slip up, but this has the makings of a classic that could go down to the wire.
