2024 Betfred World Matchplay Day Six Preview
2024 Betfred World Matchplay Day Six Preview
It’s Quarter Final time at the 2024 Betfred World Matchplay. With the format extending to best of 31, we see the first two games of the last eight, with James Wade and Ross Smith opening up the play, before World Champion Luke Humphries and Dimitri Van den Bergh face off
Cool Hand Looking To Extend Impressive Form
A rematch of the 2024 UK Open final will see Dimitri Van den Bergh face Luke Humphries in the last eight.
Luke Humphries was clear favourite to beat Dimitri Van den Bergh when they last met in the UK Open final back in March but despite fighting back brilliantly after a slow start, it was the Belgian who had the coolest of hands when it came down to a deciding leg.
The world champion looked more human in the opening months of the season than he did at the end of 2023 amid all the attention, pressure and hectic schedule so it would have been unrealistic to expect his relentless run of winning majors to continue without a break. Especially with a certain Luke Littler stealing the limelight.
Indeed, Van den Bergh was quick to point out ahead of this quarter-final that “Humphries is still in Littler’s shadow” and while that’s obviously true from a fame point of view, the world number one now has a golden opportunity exert his darting superiority without the 17-year-old grabbing the headlines.
Humphries is certainly displaying his usual high levels and ruthless consistency on the Winter Gardens stage having opened up his campaign with a breathtaking 109 average in a 10-4 thrashing of Ricardo Pietreczko before managing 102 in an 11-7 victory over the Masters champion Stephen Bunting 11-7.
Van den Bergh produced a magic nine-darter as he soundly put Martin Schindler to the sword and then showed a below-par Jonny Clayton no mercy to get here with the minimum of fuss, but he’ll struggle to live with Humphries on this kind of form in the longer format.
Wade Looking To Upset the Odds Again
Prolific 180 hitter Ross Smith will face doubling expert James Wade in the opening game of tonight’s 2024 Betfred World Matchplay
Smith, who is one of the most prolific 180 hitters on tour, fired in a whopping 13 against Gerwyn Price in the previous round while Wade has managed just three in his two games so far.
The Machine better hope his finishing is as clinical as usual otherwise he’ll find it very hard to live with such insane scoring power throughout a long format encounter. Of course we’ve seen Smith maintain these kind of levels throughout long World Championship games so don’t expect the 180s to dry up as we enter the latter stages.
Overall, Smith has averaged close to 100 in both of his matches so far and in beating Price 11-9, he reaffirmed his capability of putting an all-round performance together on a major stage under intense pressure – even if his doubling could have been better.
Wade obviously handles these types of occasion like a duck to water and but I don’t think his battling qualities will be enough on this occasion.
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Thursday July 18 (2000 BST)
Second Round x4
James Wade v Ross Smith
Luke Humphries v Dimitri Van den Bergh
