World Championship. Who's Involved?

It's approaching that time again, on December 18th the World Championship will commence and it will showcase the best the PDC has to offer and will surely be the hardest to predict in recent times.

Phil Taylor has dominated this event for the best part of a quarter of a century but this years edition will not be as easy as some years have previously been. 

Even though 'The Power' is fresh off the back of an impressive Grand Slam which saw him being crowned champion for the 6th time and averaged over 100 in every game, he still faces stiff competition with many players in scintillating form, no more so than World Number 1 Michael van Gerwen. The Dutchman has had an impressive 2014 winning the World Grand Prix, The European Championship and of course The World Championship in January. He will no doubt feature in the latter stages and fans will be drooling at the prospect of a Van Gerwen and Taylor final.

James Wade is for me one of the best players never to be crowned World Champion, but he does have strong claims this time round after a fine 2014, most notably his triumph in the Masters where he showed great character coming from 9-2 down to win the match with a 135 checkout 11-10 against a stunned Mervyn King. Bookmakers make him a fair 10/1 third favourite to go all the way, not many would argue against that possibility.

Current BDO World Champion Stephen Bunting is also in the frame on his debut after quickly adapting to life in the PDC rocketing to number 23 in the Order of Merit despite only joining in February. Phil Taylor speaks highly of the man from St Helens saying that he has a lot of time for Bunting and that he's 'One to watch'.
'The Bullet' has produced some great performances recently averaging 100+ multiple times and his devastating success rate on double 16 is an incredible trait to have, every time he steps up to hit the green bit, I have no doubt that he will close out the leg accordingly.

Mervyn King may be a dark horse for the World Title but he is the most consistent players in the PDC at this current time. He is in the form of his life recently making the Quarter Final in the World Grand Prix (losing to eventual winner van Gerwen), Semi Final in the Grand Slam (losing to eventual winner Phil Taylor) and came second in the European Championship. 50/1 shows that he may have slipped under the radar yet again and could be a bit of value.

Kim Huybrechts had a great Grand Slam, but it was something i didn't see coming, he had failed to get past the last 16 stage in any televised tournament since November 2013, but if he can reproduce the form we seen last week then he will make an impact. He deafeated Michael van Gerwen in the Quarter Final averaging 104 and even hit a 9-dart-finish. He was unlucky to lose in the Semi Final to Dave Chisnall in a sudden death leg and it will be interesting to see if this form continues.

Phil 'The Power' Taylor is 7/4 favourite and its justifiable, but the amount of players on form is nothing short of incredible. If he wins his 17th World Title, it will probably be his best one to date. 

World Grand Prix Darts Review

Michael Van Gerwen captured his second World Grand Prix of Darts title on Sunday with a convincing 5-3 victory against the impressive James Wade.

'The Machine' Wade had a great week which started with the Englishman sweeping Andy Smith aside in a tournament which proved difficult for some top players to adapt to. The unique double-in, double-out format showcased which players are most consistent at hitting the doubles and brings to life the saying "Scoring for show, doubles for dough". The match finished 2-0 and Wade went marching onto the 2nd round. Big names eliminated in the first round included Wes Newton, Simon Whitlock and Dave Chisnall.

He came up against Robert 'The Thorn' Thornton in what was arguably, the match of the tournament which included two 9 dart finishes (one a-piece), 90+ averages and some sublime finishing. The match went to the wire and a calm Wade showed no nerves and progressed into the final 8, some big names such as Peter Wright, Van Barneveld and Adrian Lewis crashed out.

The quarter-finals contained some exciting fixtures including Kevin Painter v Gary Anderson and Michael Van Gerwen v Mervin King, but the match that got the crowd going was World Number 2 Phil 'The Power' Taylor up against the man on form, James Wade. Not many people could see the 16 time World Champion Taylor being eliminated so early in the competition but 'The Machine' beat the odds and took the match 3-1 in a cool and efficient performance, efficient is the word that best describes Wades performances throughout the week.
The title of 'Match of the Round' went to Van Gerwen and King in a match which went all the way to a deciding leg. The underdog King (the man who eliminated fan favourite Van Barneveld) was a double away from victory when MVG ended the dream of a semi-final tie with Stephen Bunting.

Into the semi finals now and we had two matches with great potential; Anderson v Wade and Bunting v Van Gerwen. Two matches that I, like many others, would have expected to be tight contests.
Anderson looked on his way to the final when he was 3-1 up and firing on all cylinders, when an under-performing Wade stepped up his game and pulled off a remarkable comeback to win 4-3. Anderson was fantastic all week, never looked like missing double 20 getting into each leg but was defeated by a resilient Wade who never gave up.
The second semi-final was polar opposite to the first. Van Gerwen made light work of Stephen Bunting with lots of 180s and a high checkout percentage. Stephen Bunting played respectably, but any player would have found it hard to beat MVG on that form. the matched finished 4-0 and we now had our two finalists.

The final began with both players exchanging blows. First blood went to Wade, MVG got the next. They shared the next 4 sets and it was 3-3. Bookmakers had Wade as big favourite to get the better of the under par Dutchman after he got the highest checkout of the night, a 141 which left Van Gerwen reeling. The 7th set went to a deciding leg which saw Van Gerwen checking out 86 to go within one set of victory. After the break it was all one way traffic, 3 legs in a row to the Dutchman clinched a 2nd World Grand Prix title and cemented ranking of World Number 1 until at least the end of the year.

It was a great week of darts with some upsets, surprises and roller coaster matches that were impossible to predict. What I have taken from this week is that it will take something VERY special from a player to deny Michael Van Gerwen his 2nd world title in January.