Stephen Bunting and Luke Woodhouse do battle in Monday night’s curtain-raiser at the World Darts Championships. ‘The Bullet’ has comfortably navigated his way through to the fourth round thanks to wins over Kai Gotthardt and Madars Razma. As for ‘Woody’, he defeated Lourence Ilagan before claiming the scalps of both Mike De Decker and Damon Heta.

While Woodhouse has exceeded expectations to reach this stage, Bunting will represent his toughest test to date. The Scouse star has enjoyed a memorable year on the oche. He won his first-ever televised PDC title with an 11-7 victory over Michael van Gerwen at this year’s Masters. Bunting has not rested on his laurels since that triumph. He has averaged a mightily impressive 96.83 across 2024, a tally bettered by only 6 other players.

In fact, Bunting averaged a shade over 100 when seeing off Razma in the previous round. If Bunting can replicate those figures on Monday night, he should prove too strong for Woodhouse. Furthermore, fan favourite Bunting will have the backing of the Ally Pally crowd, and they can also play a part in spurring him on to victory.

Look to Michael van Gerwen to deliver the most 180s in his round four clash with Jeffrey de Graaf on Monday night. Despite having an up and down 2024, the Dutchman remains as deadly as ever when it comes to filling up the treble 20 bed.

In fact, ‘Mighty Mike’ has crashed in 458 maximums since the turn of the year, a return that  has him ranked 12th on the PDC’s leaderboard. The former three-time world champion hit 5 180s in his round two win over James Hurrell before doubling that tally when taking care of Brendan Dolan in round three.

Admittedly, de Graaf is not too shabby on the 180 front himself, however he is not as prolific as van Gerwen. ‘The Rebel’ failed to win the 180 battle in his round one win over Rashad Sweeting and he could then only muster up 3 maximums when dumping out Gary Anderson.

While de Graaf did produce 8 180s when seeing off Paolo Nebrida in the fourth round, he was never under any pressure during that game. Even if de Graaf manages to rack up a similar 180 count here, it may not be enough to out-max van Gerwen.

Expect some roof-raising checkouts when Luke Littler and Ryan Joyce bring the curtain down on Monday night’s action at the Alexandra Palace. Teenage sensation Littler has a real knack for getting the crowd on their feet with three figure checkouts. ‘The Nuke’ has already nailed four 9-dart finishes in 2024 and he came agonisingly close to making it five against Ryan Meikle in round two. Littler also likes to leave himself on 170 when the opportunity presents itself.

The 17-year old has delivered checkouts north of 99 in each of his two wins en-route to round four, not to mention he produced 100+ finishes in 6 of his 7 victories on his way to Grand Slam of Darts glory last month.

Meanwhile, Joyce’s efficiency on the outer ring tends to fly under the radar. ‘Relentless’ reeled in multiple 100+ outshots in his round three thriller with Ryan Searle. He also wrapped up legs on 126 and 124 on his way to defeating both Darius Labanauskas and Danny Noppert in the opening two rounds of the competition

With all that in mind, a minimum of three 100+ finishes from the pair on Monday night is certainly within the realms of possibility.