Onto the Evening Session on Day 13 and this looks set to be an unbelievable night of darts. Stephen Bunting is first on tonight and is looking to make it through to his fourth Quarter Final at Alexandra Palace but faces a tricky contest with Luke Woodhouse.
The great Dutchman Michael van Gerwen steps foot once again onto the World Championship stage and will be focused on making it through to his eighth Quarter Final in nine years. He will play Jeffrey de Graaf who produced a stunning upset against Gary Anderson in round two.
Rounding off the evening we have a very intriguing looking match between the mind-blowingly talented Luke Littler and the very steady Ryan Joyce.
I think this will be the most interesting match of this session and I’m not so sure if ‘The Nuke’ will have it all his own way.
Stephen Bunting looks primed for a deep run once again at the World Championships after looking in terrific form, especially in his last match.
He beat Kai Gotthardt 3-1 with a 92.12 average in the second and I said previously that he was always going to improve on that performance because of the way his preparation was interrupted.
In the third round he laid down a marker, producing a brilliant 100.06 average, beating Madars Razma 4-1. 6 180s and a 34% checkout rate shows me that he can improve on that average as well which looks very ominous for Luke Woodhouse.
Bunting is also in serious contention for selection into next year's Premier League and if he produces another great performance this evening he could well cement his place.
The crowd will without doubt be behind ‘The Bullet’ tonight and that should work in his favour as he tends to really feed off them.
Luke Woodhouse produced an incredible comeback in round 3, coming from 3-1 down to win nine straight legs to deny 9 dart hero Damon Heta.
Woodhouse looked completely out of it at 3-1 down but managed to find his form and dump out the well-fancied Aussie. He averaged 92.34 and hit 8 180s but he’ll know he needs to be better than that tonight.
As soon as the Englishman settled he played very well but it was slightly worrying how poor he was earlier in the match and will need to start better tonight.
He followed A 3-0 win in the first round against Lourence Illagan with a great result, winning 3-1 against World Grand Prix champion Mike de Decker. He’s clearly extremely capable and has now beaten his previous best run here by making the last 16.
Unfortunately for Woodhouse, I think this will be where his run comes to an end as I can't see past the in-form Bunting.
I'm just very concerned with Woodhouse’s form in his match against Heta because his comeback was definitely helped by the fact the Aussie went completely off the boil.
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Michael van Gerwen’s draw has completely opened up after Gary Anderson, Ross Smith, Dave Chisnall, Martin Schindler and Dimitri Van den Bergh all crashed out of his quarter.
MVG has played pretty well in this tournament so far and has managed to do enough in each of his first two rounds to get the job done.
He had a 3-0 victory with a 94.85 against James Hurrell in the second round, followed by a 4-2 win over Brendan Dolan with a 97.01 average in his next match. He had to battle hard against the tenacious Northern Irishman, and MVG produced 10 180s during the match.
He is looking comfortable at the moment but we saw him cruise through last year until throwing in a really strange performance in a Quarterfinal loss to Scott Williams, so he will have to keep on his toes in this match.
Jeffrey de Graaf finds himself in unknown territory by getting to the last 16 of a World Championship after failing to get past round 3 in his previous 7 appearances across the BDO and PDC. To be fair though he’s sailed through into round 4 after losing only 2 sets.
He beat Rashad Sweeting 3-0 in the first round before producing a sensational upset, beating one of the tournament favourites, Gary Anderson 3-0. In fairness, it's now come out that the Scotsman was injured after cutting down trees on his lake, but the Swede didn't know anything about that and held himself together brilliantly.
In the last 32, his draw opened up as he played Paolo Nebrida after the Filipino produced another big upset by dumping out Ross Smith.
De Graaf took full advantage and won comfortably 4-1 with an 89.99 average including 8 180s. He will of course know himself he needs to improve on that to trouble Van Gerwen but there's no doubting he has the game in him to do so.
I expect Michael van Gerwen to take full advantage of his draw opening up here and I can't see anything other than a victory for him tonight.
He’s playing before Littler this evening too so I would think he fancies laying down a marker and I wouldn't be surprised to see him do so.
Both these players hit a lot of 180s but MVG has had 15 maximums in 9 sets, whilst de Graaf has had 14 in 12 sets so there's plenty of value in the Dutchman in that market.
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Luke Littler will be licking his lips after seeing Luke Humphries being dumped out last night but will know he has to still do his job first.
Unfortunately for Littler, he hasn't looked comfortable at al,l to be honest and it's definitely slightly worrying and will need to really get his head down tonight to get past the solid Ryan Joyce.
Luke Littler’s incredible run of 14 televised 100+ averages on the trot came to an end in his last match but he still played very well and beat Ian White 4-1 with a 97.84 average.
He didn't have it all his own way as the experienced White really pushed him and should have nicked the 5th set after missing multiple darts. The 17 year old held himself well though and did enough to get the job done.
In his first match you could really see the frailty in the young man during the first few sets and he later admitted to feeling the nerves. He did come through 3-1 in the end against Ryan Meikle and produced a final set average of 140.91.
22 180s in 9 sets in his first two matches just shows you the unbelievable power scoring he possesses and hopefully, he now feels much more settled after winning his opening 2 matches and we see a smiling and free flowing Littler.
Ryan Joyce has played exactly how everyone expected him too but has still managed to keep himself under the radar to get to this point.
He’s a quiet man with an outrageous ability and he’s proving it once again at this year's World Championship. He hasn't had an easy draw at all but has manoeuvred his way through excellently with victories over Darius Labanauskas and Danny Noppert in the first two rounds only losing two sets.
In the last 32, he produced a stunning display of finishing to deny a 100.97 average from Ryan Searle to win 4-3.
A 62% checkout rate, 8 180s and a 97.40 average is good enough to compete with any player in the world and he’ll certainly need that tonight against the teenage phenomenon.
There's of course no doubting ‘The Nuke’s’ extraordinary ability and I do expect him to win this evening but I don't think he’ll have it all his own way.
We saw in his previous match when Ian White missed doubles to win sets and Ryan Joyce certainly won't be giving him that same luxury so I think he will make this very competitive.
My only worry is that Ryan Joyce was saying he doesn't have the game to compete with Littler in his post-match interview but in reality, I don't think many players do so as long as he remains focused it should go over 5.5 sets.
Luke Littler has also hit 22 180s in 9 sets during this tournament which is outrageous so the value is certainly there for his maximum count in this contest.
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James is a former professional dart player who enjoys writing about darts, golf and football. In 2012, he was crowned the PDC World Youth Champion and these days, he puts his expertise to use with betting tips for BettingLounge readers.