Over the course of the season, Chris Dobey has been a much better maximum hitter than Mighty Mike, his 180 per leg ratio is 0.34 per leg whereas MVG is 0.28 per leg. Hollywood has hit 14 more 180s this season than Van Gerwen, despite playing 227 legs less than him.

MVG isn’t a bad maxi hitter by any means, but he lost the 180 count yesterday against Callan Rydz in an enthralling match, he drew in this respect against Jeffrey De Graaf and beat Dolan by 2 maximums in the third round.

Dobey has won the maximum count against Alexnder Merkx, Kevin Doets and Gerwyn Price, all decent 180 hitters themselves and the game he failed to do so was against the talented Josh Rock, a match where both players amassed 9.

As this current season draws to a close with the culmination of the World Championship on Friday, Dobey has won the maximum count in 55% of the matches he’s played this year and Van Gerwen just 48%. Most of these matches would have been short format games so over this extended format, Dobey can make the most of his scoring prowess.

Can anyone stop Luke Littler? It’s looking increasingly unlikely, especially the longer the matches are as he has this insane ability to up it if needed.

He didn’t need to do that last night as he always had Nathan Aspinall where he wanted him and ran out a 5-2 winner. He has shown that if he needs to dig deep he can in his wins over Ryan Meikle and Ryan Joyce.

Against Meikle in Round Two, he produced a 140.91 set average in the fourth set to close out that match, and in Round Four, was pushed all the way to a deciding set against Joyce. Once again producing his best set of the match, a 110.89 average to win the final set 3-1 and avoid any extended drama.

It’s fair to say that Bunting hasn’t been pushed yet really. He won 3-1 against Kai Gotthardt, 4-1 versus Madars Razma, toppled Luke Woodhouse 4-0 and won at a canter against Peter Wright 5-2. This however will be completely different and there’s no doubt he’ll need to up it here.

His match averages have been respectable at 92.12, 100.06, 96.78 and 95.55, but that doesn’t match the standard set by Littler who’s averaged 100.85, 97.84, 103.14 and 101.54 and you get the feeling he still has gears to go through.

The Nuke has only lost one match on that stage previously and that is last years final against Luke Humphries. He’s not expected to fall short here.