It’s World Matchplay Final Day and this evening Gerwyn Price and Michael Van Gerwen will clash for the first time in a final in front of the Sky Cameras in what promises to be a mouth-watering encounter. Our darts expert is back for one final time this week to preview the action…
Michael Van Gerwen v Gerwyn Price
The jury was out on how MVG would fare this week after undergoing Carpel Tunnel Surgery in mid June straight after his Premier League success.
He did nothing to answer his critics in his first round defeat of Adrian Lewis, averaging just 89.99. All that mattered was the victory however and he checked out better than his opponent in that game and that was the difference.
Since then he’s looked good averaging 97.12, 101.86 and 98.90 to see off Joe Cullen, Nathan Aspinall and Dimitri Van Den Bergh respectively to book his place in this final, the first time he’s reached this stage since winning the event back in 2016, which is rather surprising.
His tournament statistics read an average of 97.77, a first nine scoring average of 108.78, he has a 39.1% checkout efficiency on his doubles, has registered thirty 180’s (a rate of 0.32 per leg) and he’s notched up just two 100+ checkouts. On the whole steady without being anything to shout home about. For him as he would say himself, it’s been about doing the right things at the right time.
His opponent here is Gerwyn Price and he was another not widely tipped to win this event and he himself has overcome a hand injury, which hampered his progress after looking superb at times earlier in the season.
He’s played better than MVG throughout this event and hasn’t produced anything below a 98 average. He kick started his tournament by defeating Martin Schindler 10-8 with a 99.78 average and followed this up by beating Dave Chisnall 11-8 with a 98.32 average.
In his last two matches however he’s upped it a notch or two. He overcame Jose De Sousa 16-14 in the Quarter-Final with a 104.64 average before booking his place here by seeing off Danny Noppert 17-11 with a 102.37 average last night, which including him hitting his fourth televised nine darter of 2022. His end average was arguably lower than it should’ve been as he went off the boil at tiny bit at the end after looking absolutely unplayable at times. His performance was definitely more befitting of a much more impressive statistical showing, especially with his mid game surge.
The tournament statistics of ‘The Iceman’ read better than those of the ‘Green Machine’ on the whole too. He has an average of 101.73, a scoring average of 110.63, a doubles percentage of 45.8%, he’s registered thirty-five 180’s (a rate of 0.37 per leg) and he’s hit six ton plus out shots.
This is the first time Gerwyn has reached the final of the World Matchplay and could become the first Welsh winner of this event, the only other finalist being Richie Burnett in 2001 who lost to Phil Taylor.
The Head to Head in 2022 favours Price who leads that 3-2 and from what I’ve seen this week he looks in the stronger form of the two and he has oozed confidence throughout, particularly in the past two rounds. I think his all round game has been better of the two this week and I’m taking him to win here.
Score Prediction: Van Gerwen 13-18 Price
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