2024 WC Darts Thursday Afternoon Tips – JP
2024 WC Darts Thursday Afternoon Preview & Tips
MVG landed a 180 with his last scoring visit to scupper our first bet last night. However, Bully Boy made amends, beating Madars Razma 4-1 and landing our 3.50 punt. James is back in action again today, check out his 2024 WC Darts Thursday Afternoon match previews and tips below.
Stephen Bunting vs. Florian Hempel
Stephen Bunting set the highest average of the tournament so far when hitting a 107.28 in his 3-0 demolition of Ryan Joyce. His good run of form continues and he has got the crowd on board with his social media funnies. The crowd will contain quite a few German fans, but the majority will be giving Hempel a very hard time for not being English.
Hempel proved that history does repeat itself when he came from 0-2 down to beat Dimitri van den Bergh 3-2. He just went berserk for the final three sets and Van den Bergh was merely a spectator.
Hempel is averaging 91.5 for the tournament and he will need the kind of darts we saw in the final three sets against Van den Bergh if he is to compete here.
Looking back to 2021 when he last beat Dimitri in the second round, Hempel lost 1-4 to Raymond Smith in the next round. Something similar would be no surprise.
These two have met twice before and it is one win each. Bunting won his match 6-4 back in February, which was before he made his career changing equipment chance in the summer.
2024 WC Darts Thursday Afternoon Tip: 0.5 point Stephen Bunting to win 4-1 @ 3.60 with Fitzdares, SpreadEx
Joe Cullen vs. Ryan Searle
Cullen was allowed to win at a canter by Darren Penhall in the second round, with the Devoian Aussie averaging a paltry 81.24.
It was a decent performance by Cullen who then proceeded to have his usual moan about why nobody was talking about his chances, and what an underrated a player he is. If there was a World Championship for Blowing your own Trumpet, Cullen would be favourite. It was a 93 average, not the second coming of Christ.
Ryan Searle was a bit disappointing in his 3-1 win over Tomoya Goto. He could only muster a 91.1 average and was just 32% on the doubles. It was a win but he will need to be better here.
The H2H record between these two is 3-2 to Joe Cullen, all floor matches and they have not met since 2021. Three went to a deciding leg and only one required less than ten legs.
Money For Searle
Ryan Searle is attracting the money and is now the 1.80 favourite. Perhaps this is because Cullen was in poor form coming into this event. He has lost seven of his last ten matches and beating Darren Penhall was hardly a massive scalp.
Cullen is the marginal 2.14 outsider and he has won two of his previous four third round matches here. Ryan Searle has played five and won just two. Half of Cullen’s matches required more than five sets, and four of Searles five went over five sets.
Over 5.5 sets is 1.62 but, as both have had two third round matches go to a deciding set and their close H2H record, I’ll take the chance on a seven setter.
2024 WC Darts Thursday Afternoon Tip: 1 point over 6.5 sets @ 3.10 with Ladbrokes, Boylesports
Chris Dobey vs. Ross Smith
It may pay to concentrate on the 180s here. They hit 17 between the two of them in the second round. Dobey was hitting at 0.50 per leg, Smith 0.41. That was more than their 12 month 180s per leg rate.
Nobody hits as many 180s per leg than Ross Smith and Dobey is pretty handy, ranked 12th on 0.31 per leg.
It is these longer format matches when we start to see the players get into their rhythm and the 180s can really start to flow. Ross Smith played in an epic match against Dirk van Duijvenbode here last year when Smith hit nineteen and Dirk twelve.
Their H2H record is 4-3 to Dobey and they have played one long format match on TV, the 2022 European Championship semi-final. Smith won that match 11-9 and it produced thirteen maximums.
The bookies think this has five or six sets in it with six being more likely. It does have the feel of what could be a close match. Their stats are quite similar scoring wise with both averaging just north of 96.
