2025 WM Darts Quarter-Finals Preview – JP
2025 WM Darts Quarter-Finals Preview
James Punt’s cover bet on Stephen Bunting was a loser but who cares because both his long-priced outright selections have made the semis. Hopefully The Iceman makes it 3/3 tonight. Check out his 2025 WM Darts Quarter-Finals preview and tips are below.
Thursday Reflections
The first two quarter-finals both saw wins for our ante-post selections, James Wade and Jonny Clayton. Both landed the place part of our each-way bets and a combined return of 12.375 points. One of them will play in the final on Sunday night with the chance to land the big prize.
Tonight, our third and final outright selection, Gerwyn Price takes on Josh Rock to see if he can take another step towards the final. But first up is tournament favourite Luke Littler taking on the slayer of favourites, Andrew Gilding.
Luke Littler vs. Andrew Gilding
Gilding won us a couple of nice bets when beating Damon Heta 12-10 in round one and thrashing Dirk van Duijvenbode 11-5 in the second. He averaged over the ton in both matches and he will need to do more of the same, or indeed better, to progress to the semi-final.
Gilding is in good form, winning eight of his last ten matches and he had reached the semi-finals of PC19 and PC20 just before the start of this event. He has hit five ton plus averages and he is a player that has these periods where he plays at a high level and is hard to beat. In the last five weeks he has wins over Gary Anderson, Ross Smith, Damon Heta (x3) and Dirk van Duijvenbode two days ago.
His H2H record against Luke Littler is 1-2 and on TV 1-1. Gilding won their last match, 6-4 at the 2024 European Championships. That match was played in Germany, and we know about Littler’s record in Germany. Littler beat Gilding three sets to one in the 2024 World Championship. They have not played in 2025.
Narrow Escape
Luke Littler very nearly got knocked out by Jermaine Wattimena in round two. I expected Littler to inflict a heavy defeat on the Dutchman, but after Littler bust 127 to win the first leg, Wattimena took advantage to break his throw and then won the next three legs all in under 15 darts.
It ended up 4-1 to Wattimena at the break and he extended that to a 7-3 lead at the second break, again winning three legs of under 15 darts. It was then Littler’s turn to have a run of sub 15 dart legs, and he led the match 8-7. They then traded legs and the match went to added time before Wattimena missed five darts to level it at 12-12 and Littler won it 13-11 with an 18 dart leg. It was close.
It was one of those matches that leaves you with the feeling that Littler’s name may already be on the trophy. He dodged a bullet as winners tend to do.
The longer format just about gave Littler time to recover from a poor position. In a floor event or on the Euro Tour he would have been out, and it demonstrates why these long format matches suit the better players.
Littler A Short Price
Luke Littler is the 1.11 favourite to win, Gilding 7.00.
Is there any chance of the Bank of Gilding paying out again? The fact that this is an even longer match is likely to make it harder than it was for Wattimena in the last round. That said, Gilding has played very well so far and has been playing well for a while now.
Gilding is a slower type of player and Littler is a pace player. He got his pace against Wattimena and Searle, but he will have to play at a slower pace tonight. At least he knows what to expect having played him three times in 2024, and twice on a big stage.
I suspect that Gilding will just be Gilding. He is the massive outsider, no pressure on him and his run to the quarters has cemented his place in the top 25. Job done. Anything else is a bonus. He will stand up and just try and hit lots of 180s and hit the doubles, two things he has done very well so far.
15 Dart Legs
In his match against Dirk, Gilding had eight legs with 15 or fewer darts and that sort of scoring wins legs, even against a player like Littler. Yes, Littler is good enough to get a few legs in 12 darts or under, and that is why he should prevail, but he is likely to either need the kind of huge average (108) he had against Searle, or hope that Gilding loses his form.
Looking at the last twenty-two quarter final matches, half have finished with 28 legs or over with only one going to added time. The lowest scoreline in the last twenty-two has been 16-7, which has happened three times in the last five years, plus last night’s win for Clayton.
If Gilding can grind out his usual standard of play, I expect him to be able to get closer to an average sort of match distance of 27 – 28 legs.
Max Hitters
Littler is the biggest 180 hitter in the game over the last 12 months with 0.46 per leg. He has been below that rate so far with just 0.39. Gilding, on the other hand, has a 12 month rate of 0.22, but so far he is hitting at 0.42 per leg.
He has had his eye in on the treble 20. If he can keep that up, we could have a 180 fest, but we have to expect his rate to be below that 0.42 rate, but likewise, Littler has the capacity to hit more than he has.
Their three previous matches have produced a combined 180 per leg rate of just 0.33, which is low. I was thinking of a bet on over 18.5 maximums at 2.20, but that low H2H rate has put the kybosh on that.
I will stick with the thought that Gilding will be good enough to get his fair share of legs. Fifteen of the last twenty-two quarter finals have seen over 25.5 legs. In Goldfinger I trust!
2025 WM Darts Quarter-Finals Tip: 1 point over 25.5 legs @ 1.91 with Hills
Josh Rock vs. Gerwyn Price
A more competitive match on paper, but will it pan out that way? Rock required extra time to beat Michael van Gerwen 13-11 on Wednesday night. Rock made a slow start to the match and was second best for most of it.
MVG was 4-1 up at the first break, he won his second leg with a 21-dart leg and narrowed MVG’s lead to 6-4 at the second break. MVG was 9-6 and only needed two more legs to win the match but Rock won four in a row to take the lead for the first time in the match. Van Gerwen hit a 12-dart leg to square it at 10-10. Three scruffy legs followed before Rock got over the line with a 14-dart leg.
It was a 95.16 average for Rock, and it was just MVG’s doubling that cost him the match in the end. The old MVG would have won, easily. It was Rock’s seventh win in his last ten matches, but his lowest average, which shows how well he has been playing.
Unplayable Price
Gerwyn Price has now won thirteen of his last fourteen matches and hit six ton plus averages in his last six, including a 108.73 in his 11-3 thrashing of Chris Dobey on Wednesday. He was just unplayable. He is the form player in the tournament.
Their H2H record is 4-3 to Gerwyn Price and in 2025 1-1 (and Northern Ireland beat Wales in the World Cup final), but they have not played since April and Price has upped his game since then. They have not played any real long format matches. The two longest were both Players Championship finals, Price winning both 8-5 and 8-7.
Price has only won one of his three previous quarter finals, but he looks hard to oppose tonight.
