Wednesday PDC World Darts Championship Tips

It’s starting to feel a lot like Xmas, especially now that the darts at the Ally Pally is starting. James Punt is going to be busy this festive season and he’ll have daily previews for every match. You can see his ante-post preview by clicking here. His Wednesday PDC World Darts Championship tips are below.

Ritchie Edhouse vs. Peter Hudson

Local man Edhouse can catch the 329 from Enfield to Wood Green station and walk up the hill to Alexandra Palace in less than an hour. There he should have been facing a no chance Chinese player, but it is no longer a question of Wen, but who?

Peter Hudson was the third player on the reserve list, and he gets the late call to get himself down from Eccles in time for Wednesday’s opening match.

This will be Edhouse’s second World Championship, having made his debut in 2020, beating Boris Koltsov 3-1 in the first round before losing 0-3 to James Wade. Edhouse is not in great form, losing six of his last ten matches, but he averages a respectable 92. Drawing the Chinese qualifier was a good draw for Edhouse as there are plenty of other opponents he could have drawn against whom he would lose. Now he faces a tour card holder and a better quality opponent.

Never Won A Senior Title

Hudson has been on and off the pro tour since 2011 but he has never won a senior title and has only a Challenge tour win in 2015 to his credit. His 2021 average is just 85.9 with a win rate of 41%. In his last 50 matches, only 30% have seen a 90 plus average.

Both these players are of the journeyman pro category, but Edhouse is a more accomplished one. He won their only previous meeting, a UK Tour card qualifier, 6-4 back in 2017. He has three Challenge tour wins, has an annual average of 92 and a win rate of 53%.

Edhouse is the 1.29 favourite to win, 1.57 with a -1.50 set handicap but this massively underwhelming match can be passed over. No bet.

Ricky Evans vs. Nitin Kumar

This could be a more competitive match, but Evans is another hot 1.08 favourite. This will be Evans’ seventh visit to Ally Pally and he has played ten and won four. He has had to face MVG in his second-round matches for the last two years. Rapid has won four of his six first round matches and he should be making it seven against Kumar.

Kumar is making his third appearance but has lost both his previous first round matches, both 0-3 to De Zwann and Dolan. He improved his average from 77 on debut to 90 vs. Dolan. It was a decent performance, but it is hard to say if he has been able to make much progress since. Like many of the Asian players, they are handicapped by there being no PDC Asian Tour for the last two years and their lack of match practice should have a negative effect on their standard.

Evans Struggling For Form

Evans is not in great form, losing five of his last ten matches, but his seasonal average is 91, not good but likely to be a cut above Kumar. That said, Evans averaged just 77 against James Wade at the recent players championship finals and anything like that and he might find himself in a spot of bother. In his last ten matches, Evans has hit six sub 90 averages including 74.5, 77.4, 81.8, 82.2, 85.9 and 88.6. Those scores should be ringing alarm bells.

Evans, low on confidence and playing a match which he needs to win and pick up much needed ranking money, could start to panic if he starts to struggle. In his last match against James Wade, he just couldn’t hit a double and he quickly unravelled, dragging Wade down with him.

I might not go as far as to say that Evans will lose, but this could be closer than it should be. I’ll take anything but 3-0 to Evans.

Wednesday PDC World Darts Tip: 1 point Nitin Kumar to win +2.5 sets @ 2.20 generally available

Adrian Lewis vs. Matt Campbell

Lewis was last seen ranting and raving at Peter Wright at the Players Championship finals. He lost that match 5-6 and he was more likely pissed off that he lost a winnable match, and his ranking continued to slide. Lewis has lost five of his last ten, which is odd because if you listen to commentators, you would think he was back to something like his best. He does sometimes play very well but there is a lack of consistency which holds him back.

Lewis has a very good Championship record, a two-time winner, a runner up, a beaten semi-finalist and four time losing quarter finalist. He has only lost two of his opening matches in sixteen appearances.

3rd Appearance For Campbell

Matt Campbell will be making his third World Championship appearance, losing both previous first round matches. He played in the recent Grand Slam and lost all three group matches, winning just three legs and averaging 85.3. He is better than that and he won this year’s European Challenge tour OOM and he has been playing in the online events with success.

However, he will need to score better at this level. In his previous two visits to the Palace, he lost 1-3 to Mark McGeeney, averaging 88 and 2-3 to Scott Mitchell, averaging 94.7. The Mitchell match was top class and could have gone either way.

Campbell has the potential to beat Lewis, but he is going to have to find his A game or hope that Lewis has one of his fairly common off days. Lewis is the 1.36 favourite and Campbell the 3.50 outsider.

Tricky Contest

It is a tricky match to call. Given Campbell’s low scoring, Lewis must be fancied to win comfortably, but Lewis is no longer banker material. Four years ago he was a shock loser in his opening match with Kevin Munch, going down 1-3 and last year he went out to Danny Baggish, again 1-3.

Looking at the most recent form over the last 10 weeks Lewis is averaging over 6 points more than Campbell, is checking out at 41% to Campbells 34% and hitting 180’s at 24% per leg compared to 14% for Campbell. Lewis’ greater experience should allow him to settle, but he is not exactly the most serene character and if Campbell gets under his skin, he could unravel.

Campbell just hasn’t looked in good enough form to pull off the surprise and I’ll take Lewis to cover the handicap.

Wednesday PDC World Darts Tip: 1 point Adrian Lewis -1.5 sets @ 1.71 with Betfred

Gerwyn Price will open his defence in the final match of the evening. He plays the winner of the Edhouse vs. Hudson match, which will most likely be Edhouse.

Price has a 1-0 H2H record with Edhouse. They met in a Euro tour match in October which Price won 6-2. Price will be a hot favourite to this, and he is in a different league to Edhouse, but his first round matches here rarely been one way traffic. He beat Jamie Lewis 3-2 last year, beat William O’Connor 3-2 the year before and lost 2-3 to Aspinall in 2019. He beat Ted Evetts 3-0 in 2018 but won only one set in his first three Ally Pally matches, losing 1-3, 0-3 and 0-3.

For the last four years the defending champion has won their opening match 3-1. It would be no surprise to see Price not having things all his own way. Edhouse will have already played in the venue that hight and any pressure is on the defending champion.

Obviously, there are no odds at the time of writing, but a 3-1 correct score for a Price win would be my suggestion.

-JamesPunt