2024 Betfred World Matchplay Day Seven Preview
2024 Betfred World Matchplay Day Seven Preview
On Friday night we will have our 2024 Betfred World Matchplay Semi Line up, with four players this evening going to fight it out to join Luke Humphries and James Wade.
Green Machine Hoping To Get Back Into Winners Circle
Last night we saw a repeat of the 2024 UK Open Final but with a different outcome, and tonight is a repeat of the 2023 UK Open in which Andrew Gilding will face Michael van Gerwen
This Matchplay has delivered shocks, including James Wade being a Semi Finalist, and some would say Andrew Gilding being in the Quarter Finals falls into the same category after a huge drop in form since his UK Open success last year. He would 100% fall into that category if he was to beat MvG over this longer format.
Goldfinger has got wins over Kryzsztof Ratajski and Peter Wright so far but this is a bigger challenge, and he will certainly need to improve on the 6 point difference in average between the two players in this years tournament.
Michael van Gerwen has been in impressive form from the start of this tournament, with bookmakers having him as the underdog for his first round game, but wins against Luke Littler and Joe Cullen have seen The Green Machine confidence grow, and we all know a confident Michael is a dangerous one.
This will be fascinating game with the pace of Gilding, and Van Gerwen urgency to get to the board and play the game at his pace, and with the possibility of 37 legs who know what will happen.
Former World Cup Partners Face Off
Rob Cross may have survived a massive scare against Gian van Veen in the opening round but the manner of his performance against Ryan Searle laid down a serious marker to the remaining World Matchplay field.
In truth, he didn’t even play badly against van Veen, who played out of his skin before missing six match darts en route to a 13-12 defeat, so he can head into tonight feeling in great shape.
Voltage averaged 107 in brushing Searle aside 11-6 and crashed in eight 180s, while his checkout percentage was a highly clinical 58%. On this kind of form, everyone is in trouble.
However, Michael Smith doesn’t take too kindly to being an ‘underdog’ and made a mockery of the odds to thrash in-form Gary Anderson 10-5 in the opening round with an average of 102 before scrapping past the highly fancied Chris Dobey 11-9 last time out.
Bully Boy’s seasonal stats may not be as impressive as Cross but generally he tends to save his best for the bigger stages, as proved by the fact he reached the Premier League play-offs and his fellow Englishman didn’t.
As for the 180 count, Cross has actually hit more during his Blackpool run at a slightly higher rate but Smith is generally the more prolific, so do we expect tournament form or normality with 180s, and even the bookies are finding it tough to pick a winner.
Each day we will be providing you recommend bets in partnership with Betfred.
Friday July 19 (2000 BST)
Second Round x4
Michael van Gerwen v Andrew Gilding
Michael Smith v Rob Cross
