Day 7 at the Paddy Power World Darts Championship certainly had its shocks, as two more seeded players crashed out of the tournament.
After a relatively quiet first few days James Wade and Peter Wright had already fallen prior to Thursday’s action, opening a section of the draw for the likes of Luke Littler, Raymond van Barneveld, Jim Williams, Radek Szaganski and Matt Campbell as the former Premier League pair were on course to meet in the Last 16.
All 5 players will now battle it out for a place in the Quarter Finals and £50,000, providing a huge opportunity to go on deep run on the biggest stage of all.
Luke Littler continues to introduce himself to the darting world, after stunning UK Open Champion Andrew Gilding to move through and face the Matt Campbell after Christmas.
Goldfinger, despite defeat, found a 130 checkout on the bullseye, but it wasn’t enough as his 16-year-old opponent found 5 180s and a 92.65 average.
Gilding wasn’t the only UK Open Champion to fall on Day 7 as Danny Noppert the 7th Seed was stunned by Scott Williams in the following match, with Shaggy wiring double 18 for the first 9 Darter of the tournament.
The Freeze produced a roof raiser of his own, finding the bullseye for the third big fish (170) of the 2024 World Darts Championship in the opening leg.
Scott showed real character to take the opening 2 sets by last leg deciders, including 7 180s overall to set up a Third-Round tie with either Martin Schindler or Jermiane Wattimena.
The 2024 World Championship has already seen more of the Top 32 exit at the 2nd Round stage than the whole of the 2023 tournament, with only 3 Seeds exiting before the Christmas period 12 months ago. (James Wade, Daryl Gurney, and Callan Rydz).
Day 8 at the Alexandra Palace sees Florian Hempel face his rematch with former World Matchplay winner Dimitri van den Bergh, whilst Masters Champion Chris Dobey brings penultimate day before the Christmas break to an end when he faces William O’Connor.
2024 Paddy Power World Darts Championship:
Day 7 Results
Afternoon Session
Round 1:
Micky Mansell 3-0 Xiaochen Zong
Berry van Peer 3-2 Luke Woodhouse
Round 2:
Madars Razma (32) 3-1 Mike de Decker
Rob Cross (8) 3-0 Thibault Tricole
Evening Session:
Luke Littler 3-1 Andrew Gilding (20)
Scott Williams 3-0 Danny Noppert (7)
Gabriel Clemens (22) 3-1 Man Lok Leung
Damon Heta (10) 3-1 Martin Lukeman
2024 Paddy Power World Darts Championship: Day 8 Order of Play
Afternoon Session
Brendan Dolan (28) v Micky Mansell
Jose de Sousa (25) v Jeffrey de Graaf
Krzysztof Ratajski (24) v Jamie Hughes
Dirk van Duijvenbode (12) v Boris Krcmar
Evening Session:
Dimitri van den Bergh (15) v Florian Hempel
Martin Schindler (26) v Jermiane Wattimena
Raymond van Barneveld (29) v Radek Szaganski
Chris Dobey (17) v William O’Connor
—–Ends—–
Images: Cleeves / PDC
