PDC World Darts Championship 2020 preview and schedule: Saturday December 28, afternoon session

Even though it's cold outside, you can feel that the PDC World Darts Championship is really heating up.

In the first 79 matches of this year's World Darts Championship, we saw just one player average above 104. The last game of the third round and the second game of the fourth brought another two. And how ominous is it that the pair to produce them are this year's frontrunners, Gerwyn Price and Michael van Gerwen. Nathan Aspinall and Gary Anderson didn't produce the same big numbers, but set off more fireworks than the Ally Pally sees at its annual pyrotechnics festival.

How about some more of that tungsten titillation on Saturday afternoon, then?

One to make history

Either Steve Beaton or Darius Labanauskas will break new ground in the first match of the session. Labanauskas is at his second PDC World Darts Championship, Beaton his 19th. Yet neither has ever appeared in the quarter-finals. Whoever of them can do it will have to face top seed van Gerwen. It's a big ask, but both have seen off particularly strong opponents in Ian White and James Wade already.

Beaton did to Wade what the Machine has done to so many others, picking off mistakes even when not playing as well as his opponent. The 25th seed is favourite on paper, but knows what Labanauskas has done to get this far. This is a no-pressure situation for the Lithuanian. It's the best major performance he's had since switching to the PDC, and he's in the top 64 on the Order of Merit thanks to this run.

Lucky D hasn't been lucky at all; instead, he's made a habit of riding the coattails of strong opponents in White and Max Hopp, patiently waiting for his chances. All three of the sets he's lost have been by a 3-0 or 3-1 margin; write-offs in the grander scheme of things. When a set his gone to the last leg, he has come out on top. Cool heads will prevail in London, and Labanauskas might be one of the coolest customers about. He could well steal a march for the three unseeded players left in the hat, should he build on previous performances.

Humphries eyes up another run

Labanauskas is one of the three non-seeds left at the World Darts Championship; meet numbers two and three. On paper, Kim Huybrechts and Luke Humphries weren't meant to get this far, especially together. Yet it feels completely natural. Huybrechts' roughest ride was against the inexperienced Geert Nentjes. Wins over Rob Cross and Danny Noppert, both seeds, have been a breeze in comparison. It's exciting to think that we may be getting the old Huybrechts back, a Hurricane who was a Premier League dead cert and a man tipped to sweep up a major sooner or later. Having culled the biggest seed from his half of the draw, who's to say he can't go all the way here?

Humphries will feel like he has the answer to this riddle. Last year, he also met Cross, at this stage in the 2019 World Darts Championship. Not only did he take out the defending champion, Cool Hand averaged a whisker short of a ton doing so. It feels like the better his opponents are, or play, the more class we see from the world youth champion. Humphries didn't have it his own way against Devon Petersen, Jermaine Wattimena or Nico Kurz. He certainly won't do against a pumped-up Huybrechts. But he's still here while better-on-paper players sit at home, which tells you all you need to know.

The winner of this one will play Peter Wright or Jeffrey de Zwaan in the quarter-finals, and will fear neither.

Dimi dares to dream

From the current world youth champion to his predecessor; is Dimitri van den Bergh good enough to win the PDC World Darts Championship? The answer would have to be yes. The question of whether his 2019 form indicates that potential would yield a different response. But the Belgian has produced his best on the Ally Pally stage again. It's something that more trumpeted rivals have failed to do. An illness-riddled Luke Woodhouse may have been a slightly tempered roadblock, but calmly sealing his passage was almost as impressive from van den Bergh as that rout of Josh Payne.

He faces the eternal riddle that is Adrian Lewis. Jackpot is such a fitting name for darts' biggest gamble; like a go on the slots or a spin of the roulette wheel, Lewis throws up so many possibilities - some of them spectacular. At times, he was erratic and bemused against Darren Webster. Then he turned on the power. It flickered and failed once more. Then, just like that, Lewis' mojo came steaming back. It was much the same against Cristo Reyes. No surprise, then, that Lewis has played two matches at this World Darts Championship that needed to be decided in the last set.

Van den Bergh might not let things go that far. And so, if Adrian Lewis is to reach the quarter-finals for the first time in four years, he'll need some consistency. His opponent will need to be a bit more ruthless than he was against Woodhouse. The prize is a quarter-final meeting with Nathan Aspinall, and possibly even more, if either can reach out and grab the opportunity. The Dream Maker is the favourite, but given what we know Lewis is capable of, perhaps his World Darts Championship dreams depend on what the two-time world champion lands when he rolls the dice.

Click here for more information on the PDC World Darts Championship, which takes place at the Alexandra Palace between December 13 and January 1.

PDC World Darts Championship 2020 schedule

Saturday December 28
Afternoon Session (1230 GMT)
Fourth Round

12:45 Steve Beaton vs Darius Labanauskas
14:00 Kim Huybrechts vs Luke Humphries
15:15 Dimitri van den Bergh vs Adrian Lewis

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