Despite not being anywhere near his best, Michael Smith is in his third World Championship Semi-Final in five years, hoping to reach a third final too. He faces the German Giant Gabriel Clemens who walloped the Number One seed, Gerwyn Price 5-1 last night with arguably the most dominant display of the event thus far.

Smith wasn’t as visually impressive in defeating Stephen Bunting 5-3 yesterday afternoon but still found a way to win. Similar remarks were made in his victory over Martin Schindler where he found enough of a burst in that one to grind out a result. He does have the game where in the matter of minutes he’s taken command of the match.

These pair actually met in the UK Open earlier this year and it was Smith who won 10-8. A mid game three leg winning sequence was enough for ‘Bully Boy’ to seize control. He maintained that advantage from there on in and never allowed Clemens a way back in the game. Their head to head record also favours Smith, who leads 4-1.

Clemens shouldn’t readily be dismissed as from watching the games he’s looked the better player of the two overall throughout this event but this is new territory for him. He’s held it together so far and scores impressively so will be a danger but as we know Smith still has more gears to go through, a significant improvement in his maximum hitting could spell trouble for his German opponent. I’m taking Smith to advance here to give him a third crack at winning this title.

The second Semi-Final sees Michael Van Gerwen begin as red hot favourite to defeat Dimitri Van Den Bergh.

Van Den Bergh is also entering new territory in this event and a timely break of throw against Jonny Clayton in the seventh set was enough to sway the match in his favour before holding throw in the final set to claim victory. It was a tight game which could’ve gone either way.

Van Gerwen on the other hand dismantled Chris Dobey 5-0, losing only three legs. Dobey who had recently beaten MVG in the European Championships never got a look in against an imperious opponent. There’s no doubt Michael Van Gerwen is the man to stop in this event and no one looks like doing that at present.

Their head to head, unsurprisingly favours Van Gerwen too with 11 wins, 1 draw in the Premier League and a solitary victory for Dimitri back in 2018.

MVG is too short to tip up but one aspect I do like in this is Dimitri Van Den Bergh to register a bullseye finish. He may be chasing MVG throughout which often means attempting all out shots possible rather than setting up. In this instance the bullseye comes into play with increasing regularity.

Last night Chris Dobey was only afforded 14 darts at the double last night and three of those were at the bullseye. No one has attempted bullseye as many times as Dimitri in this event with 10, hitting it twice so far. He’s also been using that segment regularly from a scoring perspective too, hitting it on six occasions from fourteen attempts mid game. The deeper Van Den Bergh can take this the better opportunity this will strike, especially as the format is now a race to six sets there could be ample opportunities.