The Two Belgian representatives at the World Cup of Darts clash for a place in the Quarter-Finals of the World Darts Championship.

Kim Huybrechts came through the simplest of tasks to beat South African Grant Sampson 3-0 in his opener then defeated the defending champion Peter Wright 4-1 in his most recent match. Kim was quick to point out afterwards that he beat a player some way clearly below his best. A win’s a win however and he’ll be looking to make the Quarter-Finals for the second time but that previous run was in 2012, on debut in this event.

He faces 2020 World Matchplay champion, Dimitri Van Den Bergh here, who starts favourite here. He looked sublime in his opener defeating the dangerous Lourence Ilagan 3-0 in that one with an impressive 97.20 average. He then defeated Krzysztof Ratajski 4-1 in the third round with a 92.92 average. He wasn’t at his best but what was encouraging was he always had Ratajski chasing him.

Both Dimitri’s averages in the event have been higher than Kim’s and he also boasts a superior head to head, leading 8-4. This includes victories in their sole clash this year, 6-3 in Players Championship 22 and in their only televised meeting to date, 10-8 in the World Series of Darts Quarter-Final the back end of 2021. Take Dimitri to advance here.

Michael Smith and Joe Cullen first met back in a Development Tour final in 2011 so know each other’s game very well. Both play at a nice pace and this promises to be an Ally Pally classic.

Cullen has looked very good this week. He was pushed in his opener by Ricky Evans but ran out a 3-1 winner, averaging 95.03. He then upped this to 98.09 in his second game to defeat Damon Heta 4-0, a second convincing victory over the Aussie in the big events this year.

Smith whitewashed Nathan Rafferty in his first game with a 96.62 average, winning all 9 legs played. He survived a huge scare against Martin Schindler in his second game and had to fight back from 3-1 down to win 4-3. He didn’t get his maximum hitting in top gear until he started his fight back and that was a bit surprising as that’s Smith’s strength. Despite not being at his best last year’s runner up found a way to win and still averaged a very good 95.36.

The pair have met 21 times before and Smith leads the head to head 13-8. Six of Cullen’s wins however were 2018 or before and the recent head to head very much favours Smith who’s won six of their last seven clashes.

The last six meetings were on TV and Cullen’s sole victory was a 6-2 win in the Premier League in April. He actually looked to have Smith beat at the Grand Slam of Darts in November but Smith managed to sustain one of those magical spells to win 16-15. That was Smith’s second victory over Cullen in that particular event after beating him in the league phase 5-1.

Over the last two years Smith has defeated Cullen in the Grand Slam of Darts three times, the UK Open and the Premier League and I think he has the quality to continue his impressive recent head to head here.

Rob Cross versus Chris Dobey kicks us off in the evening session and these two will know each other well from the Matchplay in July, a game which Rob Cross won 11-9, despite trailing 8-2 at the second interval. It was a remarkable turnaround and one which Cross and Dobey could hardly believe afterwards.

‘Voltage’ as Cross is nicknamed has been in good form this week averaging 99.33 and 99.13 in his victories over Scott Williams and Mervyn King, in the latter game in particular he was sublime early on before King started playing a better game and offering some resistance. Both those averages are above the line on offer at 98.5.

I think in general that’s too high, particularly as Cross can blow hot and cold as his two games versus Dobey this year demonstrate where he’s averaged 90.52 and 109.49. His seasonal average is 96.65 and at the Grand Slam of Darts we saw him average 88.80 in one game and only five times in his last fourteen games has the 98.5 mark been bettered. Go under here.

Two Dutchmen are involved in the next round and both were involved in classics in their previous round games. Van Gerwen played against Mensur Suljovic in a high quality match in which he notched twelve 180’s. Van Duijvenbode was involved in that match against Ross Smith which broke the record for the number of 180’s in a seven set match, Dirk hitting twelve of them and as we know he’s the biggest 180 hitter on the circuit over the course of 2022 in terms of his per leg ratio of 0.38.

I like the mark of both players hitting seven or more in this game. As you have already read, both hit 12 in their previous games and this should be readily attainable even if we don’t get the full seven sets. I’d still be confident over six sets and think it’s achievable even if just five sets are played.

The night concludes with Luke Humphries against Stephen Bunting. Bunting was superb in defeating Dave Chisnall yesterday with a 102.24 average, he just didn’t wilt but he doesn’t always play as well as that.

Humphries improved significantly on his opening game, increasing his match average by some 5.5 points in defeating Vincent Van Der Voort 4-3. That was his second last set deciding win already, proving he has the bottle when needed.

These pair have met seven times before with Luke leading the head to head 5-2. They’ve met once this year in a Semi-Final which Humphries won 7-0 and they’ve met once before in this event in which Humphries also won in the 2019 event 3-1. I’m taking him to prevail again in this one to reach his fourth Quarter-Final here in five years.