PDC World Championship Preview - Day 5

It's back to one session of PDC World Championship action per day, but luckily there's a lot of quality packed into an action-packed few hours at the Ally Pally. Both the world number four and the world number five are in action. There's a former BDO world champion, and a former PDC world finalist. Throw in a debutant and a man who achieved a 115 average on stage this year, and you have the recipe for an outstanding night of darts. That's all without accounting for the history-making, evergreen darting icon who kicks off day five.

Ronny Huybrechts was 16. Kevin Painter was 14. Mensur Suljovic was nine. Mark Webster, Daryl Gurney and Kai Fan Leung weren't even born. That was January 1982, the month in which Paul Lim played in a world championship for the first time. Singapore's greatest darting export has never fared better than a quarter-final in 1990 - the year in which he hit the first ever nine-dart leg on the biggest stage of them all.
Lim is a hero to many generations of Asian darts players, including Hong Kong's Leung. The Chinese qualifier winner, like Lim, also dabbles in the soft tip game. But, as he told Darts News' Samuel Gill in an exclusive interview earlier this month, he loves to embrace both the steel and the soft. A thrashing at the hands of Jermaine Wattimena, plus an early World Cup exit alongside Royden Lam, so far accounts for all of Leung's major PDC experience. Whatever happens, a match-up with the old master will be a real learning curve for the 34-year-old.

12 months ago, Mensur Suljovic lost in the second round of the PDC World Championship, in a seven-set thriller against Mark Webster. From then until now, the Austrian's career has gone supernova. Now fifth in the Order of Merit, Suljovic has reached four major quarter-finals, plus the semi-finals of the World Grand Prix. On top of that, Suljovic entered the Champions League of Darts as the rank outsider, and won it in style. The loveable and always entertaining Suljovic is now a dead cert for the Premier League. It has been a truly remarkable rise for the Gentle. The next challenge is to arrest some poor Ally Pally form; in nine attempts, Suljovic has never reached the quarter-finals, and has suffered four first round exits. Kevin Painter makes one massive banana skin, as well. The former world finalist has appeared in every single World Championship since 2002, though the last two visits have ended in harsh treatment - both on and off the oche - by Phil Taylor. The Suffolk thrower will have taken some time off watching his beloved Ipswich Town to pile in the practise hours, and will be up for this. From 2012-14 he went out in the third round; from 2015-17 he went out in the second. Painter will be hoping Suljovic doesn't continue the downward trend.

Speaking of meteoric rises, few have come to the fore quite like Daryl Gurney. The Northern Irishman is now the world number four and a certified major champion, having sealed the World Grand Prix title. No matter what Phil Taylor says, Gurney will be a significant figure in elite darts for the foreseeable future. As well as winning in Dublin, Gurney made it to the semi-finals in the UK Open, the World Matchplay and the European Championship, as well as the quarter-finals in the Grand Slam and the Players Championship finals. That's without mentioning his run to the last eight of last year's World Championships, where a mini-meltdown in victory over Mark Webster began his on-off relationship with darting crowds. If there's been a major tournament played, Daryl Gurney has been in and around the latter stages of it.
In his way stands Ronny Huybrechts, who can show younger brother Kim how it's done three days before the junior Huybrechts takes to the stage. The Belgian does not have great Ally Pally pedigree. Wins over Andy Smith and Dean Winstanley are the fruits of four years of labour thus far. He has been sent packing with heavy defeats at the hands of his younger brother, Peter Wright (twice) and James Wade last year. Ronny knows how to turn it on, but he is playing a man who has forgotten how to turn it off. Gurney will have one eye on a second round tie against John Henderson or Marko Kantele already, but better get the job done in round one first.

It's great to have the real Mark Webster back. After a long battle with crippling dartitis, the likeable Welshman is back in big screen events and playing well. That said, his World Championship form has never abandoned him. The Spider has gone out in the first round once in eight Ally Pally showings, reaching the semi-finals twice. Last year, Joe Murnan and Mensur Suljovic were seen off, only for Daryl Gurney to end his hopes in a feisty last 16 clash. Perhaps Webster can put on another fine run in the 2018 edition of the world's biggest darting bonanza.
If he wants to face Gary Anderson in a belting second round tie, Webster will need to overcome a preliminary qualifier. That will either be Paul Lim, who he has seen plenty of times. Or it will be the relative unknown, Kai Fan Leung. Either way, if the former BDO world champion hits his double 10s with typical ruthlessness, it would take a sterling effort from either of the Asian representatives to see him off.