PDC World Championship 2020 First Round match preview: Harry Ward vs Madars Razma.

Harry Ward and Madars Razma will meet in the first round of the PDC World Championship, with both players making their tournament debut.

Their midweek tussle will be the 27th of the first round clashes. We're previewing all 32 of them - it was Mickey Mansell against Seigo Asada last time out. The schedule for every one of those 32 games, and the rest, can be found here.

Facts and figures

Match time/date: 13:40, December 18

Head-to-head record: Harry Ward 1-1 Madars Razma

Previous meeting: Harry Ward 6-2 Madars Razma, Players Championship 16 (2019)

Best major performance this season: Last 64, Players Championship Finals (Ward); Last 32, UK Open (Razma)

Previous PDC World Championship appearances: N/A

Best PDC World Championship performance: N/A

Preview

Next up on the Wednesday afternoon session, we have a real exciting prospect as Harry Ward takes on Madars Razma, third game on. Ward has for a long time been a player to watch and burst onto the scene this year after gaining his Tour Card by winning a maiden PDC title back in May which gave him his spot in this event.

Since then, ‘Big H’ has played well in spells both on the Players Championship and Development Tour but has not fully kicked on since then. A lot of that could come down to the fact that barring European Tours and the Players Championship Finals a few weeks back, he has hardly appeared in major tournaments but now he has the chance to shine on debut at the Alexandra Palace.

Razma on the other hand will finally make his debut at the PDC World Championship after finishing atop the PDC Nordic and Baltic standings.
The Latvian, a fully fledged Tour Card Holder in his own right has blown hot and cold this season on the main PDC Tour making runs to the latter half of tournaments and qualifying for European Tours before bouncing out at the first round stage.

Despite that though when he does reach the bigger stage, he has proved himself to be a classy operator and one that should not be underestimated.

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Prediction

It’s hard to pick a winner between these two due to them both being on debut and both showing form mostly away from the stage. Despite that though, many people will be lumping on Ward but the prediction we do give is Razma 3-2 Ward.

We think it will run close but the Latvian will show his big stage experience at the crucial time and like he does at times take out a big finish for good measure. A potential understated tie of the round though overall which could in theory go either way.