The PDC William Hill World Championships

Posted: 13.12.17 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

The action starts tomorrow, here is our preview!

It’s that time of year again! The PDC World Championships followed by the Lakeside, things don’t get any better than this for darts fans. From our point of view this is a very special World Championship as we have our coached and sponsored player, Diogo Portela competing at The Palace so we will be getting some insider knowledge this year. Follow our blog for all the news.

It is not just the first Brazilian ever to compete at the Worlds that is making the Ally Pally news. The Power will be making his farewell appearance on the big stage and his legacy will remain in more ways than one!

The Phil Taylor Leagacy Darts - Limited Edition!

It is also shaping up to being a very interesting tournament and one that is hard to predict. The mighty MVG is odds on favourite I admit, but he has not consistently shown the same invincibility that he has done in more recent times. Anderson usually puts his mid-term mayhem (where he loses matches he really shouldn’t) aside for the Worlds and he will be once again a formidable opponent for Mighty Mike.

Let’s not get too far down the list before we bring Phil Taylor in to the reckoning. He can’t win it, can he? We said that at the Grand Slam, he was written off by the bookies but he did do it. If you shop around you can get 14/1 on The Power lifting the trophy at his spiritual home come the first day of 2018.

Who else? Rob Cross has had a fantastic year, 16/1 and more of a spoiler this year than a potential winner I reckon. Jackpot’s stirring in form has dragged a few pundits out of the woodwork to market him as a potential winner. At 35/1 you can see why. Also in the mix is Gurney, Suljovic and of course Diogo’s opponent Peter “Snakebite” Wright. The thing with Peter is no one knows how much, if at all, this issue with his gallstones will affect him.

Braziliant and Snakebite are the last game of the first round so he has gained some valuable recovery time. Maybe a watching brief on Wright to see how he goes against Diogo.

The action starts at 7.15 pm on Thursday 14 December. The evening session games start at 7.15pm. We will be at The Palace so we will report back on Friday.

The action rolls through to Saturday 23 December and then resumes after Xmas on Wednesday 27 December. Play goes on until Saturday 30 December and the Final is on Monday 1 January 2018. All the action is live on Sky Sports Darts.

The opening night action looks like this:

Thursday 14 December
Steve Beaton (8/13) v William O'Connor (6/4)
James Wilson (21/20) v Krzysztof Ratajski (10/11)
Michael van Gerwen (1/41)  v Christian Kist (33/1)
Gerwyn Price (5/12)  v Ted Evetts (9/4)

The Darts Performance Centre is a resource to assist dart players of all standards play better darts. The site is arranged as an online coaching manual.

There is advice on technique, nerves, psychology, goal setting, practice games, an area to log your statistics and an interactive area where your darting questions are answered by two sports scientists, one with 30 years dart playing experience. 

You also get an invite to our free but exclusive members only events and access to our members only darts coaching app! Membership is £25 per year!