Saturday’s pair of quarter-finals may have a hard task to beat Friday’s session for drama and quality, but they will most certainly try.
It is a duo of matches few may have forecast a week ago, when the action first began in Wolverhampton, but presents an interesting contrast of styles and experience.
First up is Stowe Buntz v. Stephen Bunting. Their surnames may be near identical but their familiarity with the latter stages of PDC majors could not be more different.
Buntz has enjoyed a whirlwind of a week in Wolverhampton, arriving with few expectations but set to leave with a career-impacting pay cheque and new wealth of experience.
His opponent Bunting may have only made this stage of a Grand Slam once before (on debut back in 2014), but he has made several more televised quarter-finals and has built comfortably and confidently into this competition.
The American Buntz however does have the obvious advantage of having defeated Stephen in their only other match-up, back on Sunday in the group-stage.
As Bunting’s only defeat as yet in the competition, it could prove a critical edge, but The Bullet will be keen to learn lessons.
The second quarter-final of the day pits the best ranked PDC player outside of Europe against a former World Champion: Damon Heta v. Rob Cross.
For Heta, the challenge is a clear and obvious one: not only overcome Cross, but achieve a semi-final berth in a PDC major for the first time (excluding the World Cup) after four quarter-final bests.
His victory in the previous round over Michael van Gerwen was typically fearless, the Aussie clearly not overawed by the stakes. But Cross will present a different problem, having produced one of the performances of the tournament in the last stage.
Over a best of 31 legs match, sparks will undoubtedly fly.
—–Ends—-
Inahes: Kieran Cleeves / PDC
