Preview/Schedule Saturday night World Matchplay: Wade-Clayton and Littler-Rock headline superb semi-final line-up

Saturday night are the two semifinals at the 2025 World Matchplay in Blackpool. Who will qualify for the final? Will it be the experienced James Wade, or will Jonny Clayton walk away with the spoils, and can Josh Rock provide another shock against Luke Littler?

The tournament at the Winter Gardens is the second largest ranking tournament of the year. With a prize pool of 800,000 pounds, players can take a big hit in the world rankings. The field of participants at the World Matchplay consists of 32 players. The top 16 of the PDC Order of Merit are seeded in the first round, and the 16 best Pro Tour players complete the lineup.
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Luke Humphries began the tournament as the defending champion, having been too strong for Dutchman Michael van Gerwen in last year's 18-15 final. However, 'Cool Hand Luke' was eliminated after a 10-8 defeat in the first round against Gian van Veen. Below we give a preview on the two semifinals that will be played on Saturday night.

The first semifinal is between James Wade and Jonny Clayton. Wade already defeated Joe Cullen and Dutchman Wessel Nijman on his way to the quarterfinals. And in that quarterfinal it was again a Dutchman who had to acknowledge the superiority of 'The Machine', this time Gian van Veen. Van Veen led 4-1 in the first session, partly due to many missed doubles by the Englishman. But after the first break, Wade played grandiose. He turned on the turbo in the middle of the match, taking eight legs in a row to take a 9-4 lead. From that point on, the current world number five made the match his own in typical Wade style. He focused entirely on his throw, basically giving away the Dutchman's legs. At the end it seemed to get exciting for a moment when Van Veen got two darts on the double to come back to 13-12, but when they were missed and Wade made it 14-11, there was no escape for the Dutchman. Wade won 16-13 to reach the semifinals for the tenth time in his career.

Jonny Clayton in turn took care of Martin Schindler and Mike De Decker to force a duel with Stephen Bunting in the semifinals. In that semifinal, "The Ferret" did not really have any problems at all. After the first session the Welshman was already leading 5-0, and in fact the match was already played by then. The Bullet disappointed and did not play the entire match. Although he tried everything to get back in the match, the difference was always around 4/5 legs in Clayton's favor. From 12-7 the Englishman couldn't take a single leg, allowing the former Matchplay finalist to take a relatively easy 16-7 victory. As far as we are concerned, Wade is the favorite to reach the final at the Winter Gardens for the seventh time. With the way he is currently playing, he is hard for anyone to beat, and seems to have an edge over Clayton.

Early this year, Josh Rock expressed hope that he and Luke Littler would soon call the shots in the darts world. It's not that far yet, but we do expect a delicious clash between the two darts giants in the second semifinal.

The favorite role will probably lie with Littler then. The reigning world champion was severely tested in the past two matches, but survived and is still on course to complete his Triple Crown set. 'The Nuke' began his tournament with a resounding 10-2 victory over Ryan Searle with an average of a whopping 108.92. Littler then won 13-11 over Jermaine Wattimena thanks to a terrific comeback, before also dealing with a strong playing Andrew Gilding (16-14).

Rock has continued his strong form of recent weeks in Blackpool and is in the semifinals of a ranking major for the second time this season, having done the same at the UK Open earlier this year. Nothing was stolen from his semifinal place at the World Matchplay.

The Northern Irishman impressed in the first round with a 10-5 victory over Ross Smith thanks to a moyenne of 104.32 per turn. After that, 'Rocky' was responsible for eliminating Michael van Gerwen (13-11) in a thriller, before Gerwyn Price (16-11) also had to bow to an unleashed Rock. In the last eight, Rock threw an average of 104.02 over 27 legs.

With his performance at the World Matchplay, Rock has already moved up six places in the world rankings and is virtually in 11th place. A win over Littler will put him firmly in the top-10, while Littler can try to further narrow his gap to number one Luke Humphries.

Remarkably, it will be only the first showdown between Littler and Rock on the PDC circuit. Both on the Development Tour circuit and on the floor, they have not yet met in match play either.