In a tournament which has seen more shocks than any other, four men have dodged the carnage to make their way into the semi finals of the 2018 PDC World Darts Championship. For one of Michael van Gerwen, Phil Taylor, Rob Cross and Jamie Lewis January the 1st 2018 will be the sweetest day of their darting career all for different reasons. I dissect what the final four bring to the table and preview both semi finals.
Jamie Lewis:
Jamie Lewis has been the Fairytale story of this years’ PDC World Championship. Having won a 3rd place match in the PDPA Play-off in Milton Keynes to qualify for the Prelim round, he made up for his last-chance saloon spot at Ally Pally by playing some sublime arrows.
The performance which raised the most eyebrows was his second round victory against second seed Peter “Snakebite” Wright defeating the Scot by four sets to one with an 107 average. Lewis averaged 107.27, hit 13 180’s and hit 55% of his checkouts in a darting destruction by the 25 year old Welshman.
He’s followed that performance with two solid victories against James Richardson in Round 3 and then a 5-0 whitewash of the 23rd seed Darren Webster in the Quarter finals to guarantee himself £85,000 and a place in the World’s top 32.
His semi-final match is one to salivate over with a clash against the retiring 16 World Champion Phil Taylor. This previous sentence something “Fireball” would have thought was inconceivable when he failed to qualify automatically for the tournament sending out a tweet to his followers that “he was really disappointed not to qualify for the World Championships for the first time in the PDC” but defiantly saying that “my time will come tho”.
Jamie odds for the tournament has tumbled from 250/1 at the start of the competition to just 20/1 slender odds considering the former. He goes into the clash with Taylor, perhaps unsurprisingly the outsider with odds of 9/2 for a Lewis upset at Ally Pally.
Phil Taylor
In most World Championships the story of Jamie Lewis would be the one that grips the tournament, however it plays only the role of subplot as the greatest Darts player of all time Phil “The Power” Taylor says goodbye to professional Darts at the end of the tournament.
The 57-year old potter has won this famous tournament on no less than 16 occasions and it would be one of the greatest moments in sport altogether if he would walk away as World Champion. And with Taylor at the semi final stages he is two wins away from the ultimate sporting fairytale.
Taylor advanced to this stage by defeating a nervous Chris Dobey 3-1, the pantomime villain Justin Pipe 4-0, a dogged Keegan Brown by the same scoreline before beating a not fully fit Gary Anderson by 5 sets to 3 in the Quarter Finals.
Taylor goes into his 20th World Championship semi-final when he faces Lewis tomorrow night with an undefeated record in his previous 19 and with a 102.02 average, 12 180’s and 50% checkout percentage in his Quarter Final win over Anderson shows that despite his impeding retirement he is still a darting force to be reckoned with.
And that Darting force is the reason why he sets of as favourite against young Jamie Lewis with Taylor 2/9 on to win the match. As far as the tournament itself is concerned he is the second favourite at 3/1 with the bookies.
Rob Cross
Rob Cross has been the new sensation that has hit the PDC circuit in 2017. Having won through Qualfying School and starting at the bottom of the rankings he has amassed £296,250 in his maiden year propelling him into the World’s top 8 in less than 12 months as a professional.
The 27-year old former electrician’s World championship campaign has seen sparks fly. Defeating Seigo Asada 3-1 in the opener he then faced Michael “Bully Boy” Smith in one of the games of the tournament surviving match darts to progress a 4-3 winner in a classic. The last 16 saw him account for John Henderson before a 5-4 victory over Dimitri van den Bergh which proved more hard work than what “Voltage” would have expected from 4-1 up as the young Belgian battled back to take the game into a deciding set.
Cross faces the World Number 1 Michael van Gerwen in the second of this evening’s semi finals at Alexandra Palace. The two time World Champion “MVG” has been somewhat a nemesis of Cross’ even if van Gerwen doesn’t define him as “a rival”. Cross was defeated by van Gerwen 11-6 in the final of the European Championship in October before a 16-13 defeat in the Grand Slam of Darts Quarter finals which proved to be one of the games of the year.
“Voltage” goes into the game as the underdog with odds of 4/1 being dished over the prospect of a dethroning. For the tournament itself Cross is 11/1 with Ladbrokes to lift the crown on New Year’s Day a remarkable figure considering he was literally a nobody in the Darting World this time last year.
Michael van Gerwen
And then finally but by no means least, the World number 1 and defending champion. Van Gerwen has been the dominant figure in Darts for the last three years taking over from the perch that Phil Taylor sat on for years before.
However his route to this stage has not been as routine as he would have liked it to have been. Even in his first round clash against Christian Kist on opening night he had to hold back a “Lipstick” surge before winning 3-1. His second round game against James Wilson was a ruthless destruction winning all 12 legs in a 4-0 win. However, that was as easy as it got for the Dutchman as in the last 16 he has to survive a comeback by Gerwyn Price before getting over the line 4-2.
But what the rest of the field will be looking at is his Quarter final performance against Raymond van Barneveld. “Mighty Mike” would perform to a standard so poor one felt it was beneath him with a second set average of a measly 85. And when he missed darts to go 4-1 in front Barney punished to send the game all the way before van Gerwen sealed the match in a tense tussle where RVB felt he should have won.
This tournament and the Sid Waddell Trophy that comes with it is the Jewell in the crown for van Gerwen stating after his defeat to van Barneveld in 2016 that he would “throw everything else in the bin to win this (the World Championship)”. And he is two games away from winning the tournament for the third time and matching the record of legends John Lowe and John Part.
The bookmaker have put van Gerwen as heavy favourite for his semi-final clash with Cross with the reigning 2 times champion 3/13 on to advance to the final and then 4/7 to convert that into a victory.
Conclusion
Four different stories but each one have different reasons why they are in with a shout of winning this tournament with the presentation of the trophy emotional whichever way the arrows of the next two days go. Can the underdog go all the way? Will MVG retain his crown? Will Cross win on debut? OR… Will Phil “The Power” Taylor walk away from the sport he has dominated and changed forever with the most prestigious it has to offer? Well two gripping nights of action await for us to find.
Join me in my next article as I break down both semi-finals one by one as we race towards the conclusion of the 2018 William Hill PDC World Darts Championship.
Henry Deacon Media 