The Betfred World Matchplay reaches its climax on Sunday evening and it promises to be a spectacular final at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens, with defending champion Dimitri Van den Bergh taking on Peter Wright for the major spoils (Match Betting – Van den Bergh 13/10, Wright 8/13).
Saturday 24th – Results
Dimitri Van den Bergh 17-9 Krzysztof Ratajski
Peter Wright 17-10 Michael van Gerwen
Sunday 25th – Order of Play
Final – Dimitri Van den Bergh vs Peter Wright – 20:30
Defending champion Van den Bergh continued his quest to become just the fourth player to lift the trophy more than once with a thumping 17-9 victory over Krzysztof Ratajski.
The DreamMaker wasn’t at his best during the semi-final contest, averaging 98.51, and he had to come back from 6-2 down to eventually secure his place in the final for the second year running.
Van den Bergh remains on course to become the first player since Van Gerwen in 2016 to successfully retain the title but the Belgian knows he will have to improve to overcome Wright, who put in a stunning display to knock out MVG.
Snakebite posted an average of 110.37 – the sixth highest in the tournament’s history – while he hit 12 maximums, three ton-plus finishes and was 46 per cent on the doubles.
It should be an absolute cracker in Sunday’s best-of-35-legs final and Wright, fresh off that stunning semi-final victory, will be confident of getting one over on VDB again.
The Scottish star has won nine of the 12 meetings between the pair and he came out on top in the most recent clash in May in the Premier League, chalking up an 8-5 victory.
Both players have pulled off some fantastic checkouts throughout the tournament and Van den Bergh is 20/21 to record the highest checkout in the final, while Wright is available at 4/5 to prevail in this market.
After such an impressive display against Van Gerwen, Wright can be backed at 4/1 to win the match, hit the most 180s and get the highest checkout at 4/1, while his Belgian foe is priced at 5/1.
Whenever you bet on Darts, Betfred.