2021 PDC World Darts Championship schedule: Saturday afternoon session including Waites, Huybrechts and King

Saturday, 19 December 2020 at 08:00

It's a big day at the PDC World Darts Championship, as the King takes to the Palace.

We'll get to Mervyn later. It's a cosmopolitan session in store, with seven different nations represented. First of them is Ireland, who had four of their kin at the World Championship to start with, but now have just one. Steve Lennon is as dependable a player as it gets, but to beat Devon Petersen in round two, he'd need much more.

First of all, the Carlow star has to negotiate a first round meeting with Daniel Larsson, he with his head as smooth as Lennon's action. The Swede was trounced by an in-form Kim Huybrechts when he made his Ally Pally debut, but will likely get more chances to make an impact this time.

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Considering that Scott Waites has a PDC major title and has been in professional darts forever, it's a bit of a surprise that this is his first time at the Alexandra Palace. The two-time world champion hasn't lit up the scene so far, but there's no doubt that he can handle high-pressure situations like this.

He could get a shot at revenge over Nathan Aspinall, who scraped past him at the Players Championship Finals. But don't count those chickens yet, because Matt Campbell is a big hurdle to jump. The ginger dynamo was excellent at the World Cup of Darts, beating Cody Harris and Dimitri van den Bergh in his two singles rubbers.

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It was Belgium who dumped Campbell and Canada out of the World Cup, largely thanks to Kim Huybrechts, who continues to lurch between the sublime and the ridiculous. It has been a frustrating year for the Hurricane, but he often does a decent job at the World Championship and will be up for this.

We don't know much about Di Zhuang, like compatriot Chengan Liu. He would've made his PDC bow at the World Cup, but thanks to the China team's travel issues, he'll debut on the biggest stage of all. Not bad, right?

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The King is in the ring for the final game of the afternoon. The ever-photogenic Mervyn King is worth backing just to see how he reacts to Jose de Sousa's unique madness in the third round. Besides that, reaching the Players Championship Finals recently means he's in somewhat of a purple patch.

King is the sort of player who'll always produce a 90-plus average and score with regularity; Max Hopp is cut from the same cloth in that respect. His performance to dismiss Gordon Mathers was as professional as it gets. The key for the Maximiser is pressuring King and not dragging his darts down, especially when going for the doubles.