Gerwyn Price and Joe Cullen get the action underway at the World Darts Championships on Friday night. Former world champion Price got his quest for glory up and running with a 3-0 win over Keane Barry, while Cullen also won by the same scoreline in round two when seeing off Wessel Nijman.

Price is the firm favourite to come through this tie and it’s hard to look past the Welshman for the win here. While ‘The Iceman’ has endured a difficult year by his incredibly high standards, his seasonal figures still make for very encouraging reading. He has posted a mightily impressive 97.01 average this calendar year – a tally bettered by only five other players across the entire PDC circuit. Furthermore, the 39-year-old sits comfortably inside the top-20 for 180s scored in 2024, firing in 385 to date.

In contrast, Cullen has averaged a shade over 90 this year, while he ranks 68th on the PDC’s leaderboard for maximums scored in 2024. While ‘The Rockstar’ played well in his round two win over Nijman, his level of performance has been under-par most of the year, and Price looks well placed to overpower him and progress to the last 16.

Jermaine Wattimena can continue his strong end to 2024 by overcoming Peter Wright on Friday night. ‘The Machine Gun finished as runner-up at the 2024 European Championship in October and he has since impressed en-route to the quarter-final stage of the Grand Slam of Darts. Wattimena will come into this tie oozing with confidence following a pair of whitewash wins in rounds one and two over both Stefan Bellmont and James Wade respectively.

Thus, the Dutchman warrants favouritism to get the better of Peter Wright, who has been a shadow of his former self this season. The former two-time world champion suffered an early exit at last year’s World Darts Championships before bowing out of both the 2024 UK Open and World Matchplay at the embryonic stages. Furthermore, ‘Snakebite’ endured another miserable Premier League campaign, propping up the table for the second year running.

While Wright secured a 3-1 win over Wesley Plaisier in round two, it was not all plain sailing for the Scotsman, who averaged below 90 and benefited from his opponents’ wastefulness on the outer ring. Wattimena represents a major step up in class, and on current form he looks poised to send Wright packing.

Luke Humphries continues his title defence against Nick Kenny on Friday night. ‘Cool Hand’ eased himself into the tournament with a 3-0 win over Thibault Tricole. As for Kenny, he beat Stowe Buntz 3-0 in round one before causing an upset by defeating Raymond van Barneveld 3-1 in round two. While the Welshman has exceeded expectations to reach the third round, his journey is expected to come to an end against Humphries.

With Humphries the overwhelming favourite, instead back him to win alongside hitting the highest checkout and most 180s. Humphries had the Ally Pally crowd on their feet with a stunning 160 checkout when taking care of Tricole in round two, firing in a couple of 180s for good measure.

On the way to winning his maiden world title last year, Humphries delivered 100+ finishes in four of his six victories, and that was also the case in three of his final four wins at last month’s Players Championships Finals. Throw in the fact that only Luke Littler and Wessel Nijman have hit more 180s than Humphries this year, then it makes perfect sense to side with ‘Cool Hand’ on the match treble here at an attractive price.