Draw for the worlds is out!!
First thing that jumps out is MVG's 1/4 final route appears about as straight forward as it gets, Ricky Evans is having a good year and Clayton and Bunting have both shown glimpses of utter brilliance this yr but you feel like MVG on C game should find himself in the 1/4s with little or no fuss, his 1/4 final seems almost certainly to be between either James Wade or Ian White, Wade's path to round 4 is fairly hazardless, Edhouse/Kyle round 2, probably Steve Beaton round 3, wuld be a fairly big shock not to see Wadey in the 4th round minimum. Ian White has a little more danger to deal with, Gabriel Clemons is a very dangerous floater and it's likely him or Hopp in the 3rd round, he does seem to have historically had a habbit of messing those types of games up too, but maybe not 2019 Diamond
. Dont see too many shocks coming here, Clemons making the 1/4 would be a shock given he's likely had to turn over Wade and Wright but wouldn't be the most surprising thing to happen given the form of the 3 players this year.
Q2 top seed is Gary and his path to the 1/4 final is a little dangerous, Brendan Dolan is a new man in 2019 and could test Gary who we just have no real idea about hit form other than we know he's massively lacking in match sharpness, Steve West and Ryan Searle both the type of characters to randomly turn up and average 100 but he should get through that in a BO9 set play game. his 4th round is almost guarenteed to be a tough game, vs either Nathan Aspinall, Krzystof Ratajski with Jamie Hughes a very dangerous floater in that segment too, if he's struggling Gary then this game could be extremely tough for him, his quarter final if he gets through is
probably going to be vs Micheal Smith which will be another very tough game as Bully boy tends to turn up these days vs his old mentor. Smith's 1/8th isn't a complete cake-walk but he should be relatively happy with it, the biggest and most obvious danger is Dimitri who on an Ally Pally stage can beat anyone, however he's so out of sorts this year and on the TV stage too which is usually where he shines, he might even find his 2nd round game vs Payne or Portela a bit of a struggle. Adrian Lewis is defo worth a strong consideration too, as he's been showing a lot more form of late, an on form Jackpot could well be the un-doing of Smith in round 4. Laurence Illagan could be a dangerous floater in this section of the draw too, he should be out-muscled if he runs into Dimitri/Smith/Lewis anywhere near their A-Games but if he has round 1 vs an out of nick Reyes, runs into a struggling Jackpot in round 2, and will have a very winnable feeling game probably vs Darren Webster (who's had a tough year with injury, but seems to be a little better now) he might just sneak himself into the 4th round, I think whoever he plays in round 4 should be playing well enough to see him off but he certainly could cause a few pumping hearts LI. I dont envisage much suprises in Q1, but Q2 with some big names lacking consistency and a few dangerous wild cards we could easily see some nonsense from this section of the draw.
Onto the second half, Rob cross, not been in the best of nick lately, but has himself a reasonable draw to his 1/4 final, Kim Huybrechts dropped from towards the back end of the top 40 this year, recently he's shown some good performances but just cant quite find any wins, Steve Lennon & Danny Noppert can cause problems, Joe Cullen at 100% can be very dangerous, but he should be able to find his way through. Bottom half of this quarter's most interesting participant will be RVB, he has a opener he should win easily, and then a very difficult game vs JDZ in the second round, BArney will be bang up for a run here, and he'll be desperately hoping that his career is put to bed in a barnstorming 1/4 final vs Rob Cross, and not a 2nd round 91 average vs JDZ, he can easily make it to the 1/4 finals here, but a 3rd round exit at the hands of Chizzy seems his most likely swansong, if he gets past Chizzy, he probs has a 4th round vs Peter Wright to deal with before a 1/4 final vs Rob Cross, then a semi vs Gerwyn Price before his dream farewell which would be the WC final vs MVG, and this is all assuming he can get past JDZ in round 2! We'd all love to see it, but we very likely won't see it! This quarter for me I think is Chizzy's for the taking, there's plenty of dangerous players knocking about (JDZ, RVB, Keegan, Malicdem a handy player too) and he's likely got to beat Wright in round 4 and Cross in the 1/4s but i just think he's playing a lot better than them right now and I personally don't think these new darts are the ones for PW, Cross seems incapable of stringing 2 decent games together at the moment. If Chizzy keeps his form of the last 3-4 months up I think he gets through this 1/4. If he can get himself a semi final appearance here, to go alongside his WGP final I think that should get him a PL spot, an A-Game vs A-Game world semi final vs Chizzy and Price might be something to savour too!
Botton 1/4 and this is a tale of two halves for sure, Gerwyn Price, the man of the moment has the easiest draw to a 1/4 final of anyone I think, Willie O'Connor is a danger man in very good form at the moment, but even with that, there is basically no -one in the bottom 8th of the draw who should cause even a very very average Gerwyn (of 2019) any trouble at all, I think a solid B- game will get him easily to the 1/4 finals this year. Conversely, the top half of Q4 is absolutely littered with troubles - Daryl Gurney the top seed there will have a testy opener vs an in-form Justin Pipe, Duzza will be hoping to play him in rnd 4 but he's going to have another awkward opening fixture vs de Sousa or Damon Heta, both of whom had very good years, his first Ally Pally appearance he might find it a bit emotional Duzza and goign off as a bog fave vs a dangerous underdog coudl lead to some scares for him. Mensur and Dobey (who is having a fantastic year) shouldn't be too much troubled getting to round 3 but Ted Evetts is playing well right now and Ron the Bomb can be lethal sometimes, the bookies would say the most likely 3rd round fixtures will be Duzza/Gurney, Mensur/Dobey and you can pretty much see anyone of those 4 making it through to play Gerwyn in the 1/4 final, whoever it is will set of as a big dog vs GP, exciting 1/4 Q4 for certain!
Roll on, Roll on!
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