Van den Bergh and Humphries go head-to-head (Photo by PDC)
The quarter-finals get under way at the 2024 Betfred World Matchplay in Blackpool on Thursday as the stakes and format increase at the Winter Gardens.
The top three seeds remain in contention for glory this weekend, while the other five hopefuls each have at least one major title to their name.
The opening two quarter-finals from the top half of the draw take centre stage on Day Six with a significant increase in format.
James Wade is one of four former Betfred World Matchplay champions left standing in the competition, and the 2007 winner aims to extend his resurgent run at the expense of Ross Smith.
Wade, who dug deep to secure the final ProTour qualification spot, is appearing in a first quarter-final in Blackpool since 2019 after putting 12th seed Danny Noppert and defending champion Nathan Aspinall to the sword.
The ten-time major winner last reached the semis here in 2015 – when he was eventually denied by Michael van Gerwen in his sixth Matchplay final.
The world number 22 is the lowest ranked of the eight remaining players – having dropped out of the top 16 last season for the first time in 17 years – but victory here would see him close in on a swift return.
Smith, meanwhile, finds himself at this stage of the competition for the first time in three attempts, having previously suffered First Round exits in 2021 and 2023.
The 2022 European Champion is into only his third major ranking quarter-final after thrashing Josh Rock 10-4 and dispatching fourth seed Gerwyn Price 11-9 with the aid of 13 trademark maximums.
A repeat of this year’s UK Open final then sees Luke Humphries bidding for revenge over Dimitri van den Bergh.
Van den Bergh secured his second major title in March with a dramatic 11-10 success over Humphries – who squandered two match darts in the deciding leg.
The Belgian’s maiden major title came at the World Matchplay behind closed doors in Milton Keynes in 2020, and he has continued his love affair with this prestigious competition.
Runner-up in 2021, Van den Bergh is aiming to reach the semi-finals for the fourth time in five appearances, having defeated Martin Schindler with the aid of a magnificent nine-darter, before thrashing last year’s runner-up Jonny Clayton 11-5.
Humphries has his eyes set on a fifth major ranking title in the space of nine months as he looks to make it back-to-back semi-final appearances at the Winter Gardens.
The world number one, who claimed debut World Cup glory with Michael Smith last month, picked up from where he left off by thrashing Germany’s Ricardo Pietreczko 10-4 with a 108.7 average.
The reigning World Champion then battled past Stephen Bunting 11-7 with a 102.3 average to make it eight consecutive major televised ranking quarter-final appearances.
The action gets under way from 8pm BST, with Quarter-Final matches to be contested over the best of 31 legs.
Matches will be extended if necessary for a maximum of six extra legs before a sudden death leg is required. For example, in a first to 16 quarter-final, if the score reaches 18-18 then the 37th leg will be sudden death.
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