Premier League Darts 2024 | Night Six Brighton Preview and Order of Play
Premier League Darts heads to Brighton for Night Six on Thursday as the chasing pack look to close the gap on league leader Michael van Gerwen.
The opening five nights of the elite invitational have produced three different winners, with Michael Smith and Nathan Aspinall triumphing either side of a hat-trick of victories for Van Gerwen.
Reigning and seven-time Premier League champion Van Gerwen, however, saw his nine-match unbeaten run come to an end in Exeter last week at the hands of Luke Humphries in the quarter-finals.
The world number two then suffered a shock defeat to Mensur Suljovic in the Fourth Round of the UK Open and will be out to bounce back at the Brighton Centre when he opens up against Rob Cross.
Cross enjoyed a fine run to his first weekly final in the new Premier League format last time out before being denied the £10,000 bonus by Aspinall.
The 2018 World Champion finds himself in joint second spot with nine points in the early league table and continued his impressive form into the UK Open, reaching the quarter-finals.
The opening match of the night sees world number one Luke Humphries take on last year’s Premier League runner-up – Gerwyn Price.
Humphries returns to action after last Sunday’s UK Open heartbreak, in which he squandered two match darts in a dramatic 11-10 defeat to Dimitri van den Bergh in the final.
The reigning World Champion dropped just 18 legs in his five wins en route to the final and continues to boast the highest tournament average (100.82) of the Premier League so far.
Runner-up on Night Three in Glasgow, Humphries reached the semi-finals last week and was denied in a deciding leg by Aspinall despite averaging 103.3.
Price, meanwhile, has endured a difficult start to the season by his standards, winning just one of his four subsequent matches since finishing runner-up on the opening night in Cardiff.
The 2021 World Champion averaged just 90.7 in a 6-1 rout at the hands of Cross last week, before squandering six match darts in a 10-9 defeat to Martin Schindler in the Fourth Round of the UK Open.
A resurgent Aspinall heads to the South Coast aiming to make it back-to-back weekly titles, and he opens up with a clash against 17-year-old sensation Luke Littler.
Having lost his opening three matches, Aspinall finished runner-up in Newcastle before going one better in Exeter to surge into the top four.
The World Matchplay champion has brushed up on the missed doubles which blighted his opening three nights, but now faces Littler for the first time since their historic Bahrain Masters clash.
Littler landed a sensational nine-darter on that occasion, becoming the youngest player to achieve that feat in a televised event as he went on to lift his first World Series title.
Littler sits in second spot in the early table but remains in search of his first weekly title, having come closest in Berlin when he was narrowly denied in the deciding leg of the final by Van Gerwen.
The World Championship finalist has picked up points in four of the opening five nights and continues to average in excess of 100 for the tournament, with 36 maximums to his name.
He reached the quarter-finals of the UK Open last Sunday, only to be denied by Damon Heta – who averaged 106 to the teenager’s 104.7 in an epic contest.
Meanwhile, Peter Wright looks to get off the mark at the sixth time of asking when he comes up against Michael Smith.
It took until Night Six for Wright to register his first win of the campaign last year, and ‘Snakebite’ will be hoping history can repeat itself as he bids to avoid becoming completely cut adrift at the bottom of the table.
After averaging 103.3 in a 6-5 defeat to Littler in Newcastle, the European Champion averaged 12 points fewer in a 6-4 loss to Aspinall a week ago.
He did, however, reach the Last 16 of the UK Open, notably thrashing defending champion Andrew Gilding 10-1 with a 101.5 average along the way.
Smith made a perfect start to the campaign by winning Night One in Cardiff, but has struggled to back that up since, winning just one of his next four games.
The 2023 World Champion is out to avert a fourth consecutive quarter-final exit and replicate last year’s success in Brighton – which saw him defeat Wright 6-5 en route to finishing runner-up.
Night Six of 2024 Premier League Darts gets under way from 7pm BST, with all matches to be contested over the best of 11 legs.
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Premier League Darts 2024 Night Six Schedule
Thursday March 7
Quarter-Finals
Luke Humphries v Gerwyn Price
Rob Cross v Michael van Gerwen
Nathan Aspinall v Luke Littler
Michael Smith v Peter Wright
Semi-Finals
Humphries/Price v Cross/Van Gerwen
Aspinall/Littler v Smith/Wright
Final
