PDC World Championship Semi-Finals Previews

Quarter-final night threw up one of the biggest shocks ever. Dave Chisnall hammered Michael Van Gerwen 5-0 in a clinical display. James Punt landed a couple of nice bets, over 7.5 sets in the Price v Gurney 5-4 thriller and over 7.5 sets in the Bunting vs Ratajski showdown (ended 5-3). The thrills and spills continue on Saturday at the Ally Pally, check out James Punt’s PDC World Championship semi-finals previews and tips below…

Gerwyn Price vs. Stephen Bunting

How many bullets can Gerwyn Price dodge? In the second round he needed the help of Jamie Lewis to win in the deciding set. Lewis bust 68 to win the first leg of the final set, allowing Price to go 1-0, Lewis then missed three darts at 32 to win the second leg and Price took out 116 to win that leg and a 14 dart leg wrapped up the match 3-2. Price then faced Brendan Dolan who took the Welshman to a deciding leg and the narrowest 4-3 win. Price then beat Merv King 4-1 in a rare comfortable win, before being taken to another deciding leg by another Northern Irishman, Daryl Gurney, in the quarter final.

Last night’s match was a strange one. Superchin missed a double to win the first leg and break Price’s throw, missed double 16 to win the second leg for a hold, took advantage of missed doubles by Price to win the third leg but lost the next and the set. The second set was won to nil by the Welshman before the match moved up a gear. Both players started hitting maximums, but most went to Gurney and he won the next two sets to square the match.

Double Troubles

The match then became a match of missed doubles and Superchin saw chance after chance slip through his fingers and he went 2-4 down having lost five legs due to missed doubles. Price then started missing in sympathy and Gurney once again squared the match at 4-4 before losing the deciding to another double 20 from Price as Gurney was sitting on 56. His match wasn’t lost with that final double top, but with the lost legs in the fifth and sixth sets.

The fact was that Gurney had the scoring power to beat Price, but not enough prowess on the doubles. Price knew he was lucky to win and admitted it.

So many narrow wins for Price. Does that mean his name is already on the Sid Waddell trophy? Or that his luck is due to run out?

He faces Stephen Bunting who defeated Krzysztof Ratajski 5-3 yesterday. He was gifted the first set by The Polish Eagle who had double trouble. Bunting then moved into top gear, winning the second set with legs of 12, 13 and 14 darts. He won the third set before Ratajski just about managed to win the fourth set but Bunting then went 4-1 up and was in total control of the match.

Bullet Showed Guts

The tide turned, as it often does in these longer matches. Ratajski picked up his game just as Bunting started missing and the match was suddenly 4-3. This is when Bunting traditionally runs up the white flag, but not this time and with legs of 12,14 and 15 darts, he took the match 5-3. Of the fifteen legs he won, thirteen where 15 darts or fewer. That is just about very to beat.

Bunting was simply the better player and always in control of the match. His scoring was good but his finishing even better. He averaged 101, had four ton plus checkouts (including a 170) and was 52.8% on the doubles. It was a very impressive performance.

Gerwyn Price had 12 of his 16 legs won with fifteen or fewer darts, a very good level, but he was letting Gurney back into the match with a lot of soft scores. Superchin very nearly won the match but only had 8 legs with fifteen or fewer darts. He won ten legs with 16,17 and 18 darts. Bunting will lap that up and should be much harder to break.

Of course, that was Bunting with his A game, maybe A+ game and there is no guarantee that he will be able to repeat it. However, he is matching Price over the tournament with both averaging 96.7 but Price has been better on the doubles with a 42.5% checkout rate compared to 38.7% for Bunting.

Bunting Needs To Take His Chances

Bunting was excellent on the doubles yesterday but in his other three matches it was just 33.9%. The key to his chances would appear to revolve around how well he hits his doubles. Over the season he has been checking out at 31.4% so he was massively over performing yesterday which suggests we may see less excellence on the doubles today if he reverts to the mean. Price on the other hand has averaged 42.4% over the season and that is bang on what he has done so far in this tournament.

Their H2H record is 6-3 to Price. They met in two majors in 2019 with Price beating Bunting 10-3 in the Players Championship finals but Bunting beating Price 13-12 in the World Matchplay.

Price is the 1.31 favourite with Bunting at 3.60. If, and it is the proverbial BIG IF, Bunting can hit the doubles like he did yesterday then odds of 3.60 look very generous. If he plays like he did in his other three matches and for the season as a whole, then Price should justify his rather short odds.

Iceman Unconvincing

Price has never totally convinced me at Ally Pally and his performances so far have not been that of a World Champion. Yes, he has won, but could so easily have lost three of his four matches. Bunting isn’t a player I could bet much on in big matches. His record in PDC majors is poor. Since he joined in 2014, he has reached just two major semi-finals and lost both. His last big run in a major was in the 2019 Players Championship quarter final which he lost 3-10 to Gerwyn Price.

If Price is to win, and I believe he will, he may very well make hard work of it, again. He has said that he is thinking of becoming the World number 1 ranked player every day and with MVG and Peter Wright out, that goal is looking very close, but he still needs to win the title. He might just get a bit ahead of himself and that can be a dangerous thing to do.

PDC World Championship Semi-finals: 2 points Bunting to win +2.5 sets @ 2.00 with Betfair Paddy Power

PDC World Championship Semi-finals: 0.5 point Price to win 6-5 @ 9.00 with Skybet

Gary Anderson vs. Dave Chisnall

Gary Angry Anderson is provisionally ranked 14th in the world but if he can win this he will move up to 8th so it is important for his big year ahead, to get back as far up the rankings as possible in order to help him out in the draws for the big events.

Anderson had no trouble beating an out of sorts Duijvenbode 5-1 yesterday. The Aubergenius just didn’t show up and said that something had got into his head before the match which he couldn’t block it out and he just couldn’t play. He refused to go into details, just saying that it wasn’t anything Anderson did. Whatever it was it changed his nature and there was just a flatness to his persona. He may also have shown Anderson too much respect as was my fear.

To be fair to both players, Anderson played very well and would have been hard to beat even if Duijvenbode had brough his A game. The Grumpy Scotsman averaged 101 and was 50% on his doubles and eleven of his sixteen legs won in 15 darts or less.

Chizzy Leaves MVG Dizzy

The performance of the tournament so far belongs to Dave Chisnall. Chizzy, destroyed MVG 5-0. Apparently, he was just 41.00 to win 5-0 which bearing in mind that he had lost 26 consecutive matches to MVG was shocking value, but he did it. Chisnall averaged 107.3, was 48.4% on the doubles and hit 14 maximums. Van Gerwen didn’t play badly, he averaged 98 and hit 43% of his doubles, but he was just blown out of the water.

Chisnall is much like Bunting. He put in a brilliant quarter final performance but his overall record in PDC Majors leaves a lot to be desired. It is usually the quarter finals he loses and his semi-final record in ranked majors is played five, won three, so he has a much better record in semi-finals than quarters. He has never reached a PDC World Championship semi-final before but did win a BDO semi. He has played Gary Anderson twice in the World Championship, both quarter finals and he lost both. In the 2017 World Championship he averaged 104.6 against Anderson and lost 3-5.

Can Chisnall Repeat The Form?

Much like Bunting, we have to ask, can he repeat the kind of performance that he produced yesterday? Maybe not. Looking at his averages in past majors he doesn’t often follow a great performance with another. He averaged 109.7 when beating Clayton in the 2019 European Championship but lost 5-10 to Daryl Gurney in the next round. At the 2019 Grand Slam he averaged 102 in his final group match, but lost to Peter Wright in the next round. In the 2018 World Matchplay he beat Michael Smith with a 103 average, but lost to Jeffery de Zwaan in the next round. In the 2015 Grand Slam he averaged 109.8 when beating Peter Wright but lost his next match 1-5 to Scott Mitchell.

Chisnall also performed well above his norm for the season where his checkout rate is 34.3% and 3 dart average 93.9, so he may find it hard to get back to that sort of level he showed last night, but he is averaging 101 so far, so he is playing better than usual.

Anderson Gradually Improving

Anderson says that he is getting there, improving match by match and I think we can expect him to be averaging over the ton tonight. Chisnall will have to play something like how he did last night and knows from bitter experience that that still may not be enough.

The bookmakers have Dave Chisnall as the 1.80 favourite and Anderson as the 2.20 outsider. Their H2H record is 19-5 to Gary Anderson and it is the Scotsman who should be favourite in my book. Chisnall has been scoring well in all his matches and is averaging 101.6 so far, compared to Anderson’s 96.2. Gary Anderson has played in five PDC World Championship semi-finals and won four. He has averaged over the ton in four, and the only one he didn’t, he lost.

PDC World Championship Semi-finals: 1 point Gary Anderson to win @ 2.20 with Betfair

PDC World Championship Semi-finals: 0.5 point Gary Anderson to win 6-4 @ 7.50 generally available

-JamesPunt