PREVIEW Sunday night World Matchplay: A second title for James Wade or a first for Luke Littler?

After an action-packed week, only James Wade and Luke Littler remain in contention for overall victory at the World Matchplay. Can veteran Wade win the World Matchplay a second time eighteen years after his first triumph? Or will it still be reigning world champion Luke Littler who wins in Blackpool?

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 18-15 to Dutchman Michael van Gerwen in last year's final. However, 'Cool Hand Luke' will not succeed himself on the honor roll after a 10-8 defeat in the opening round against Gian van Veen.

This year's final will be between Wade and Littler. Wade, for whom it is his twentieth consecutive participation in the World Matchplay, already won the tournament once in 2007, besides that he also lost five finals. For some time now, "The Machine" has had "I'm still standing" as his walk-on song, and that actually sums up his career well. The now 42-year-old Englishman has been at the top of darts for almost 25 years, but is clearly still standing.

Wade started the tournament as the ninth series leader and immediately impressed in the first round with an average of 104.44 during his 10-3 win against Joe Cullen. In the second round, he maintained that high level and won 11-5 against Dutchman Wessel Nijman. In the quarterfinals another Dutchman, Gian van Veen, was defeated 16-13.

Then, in the semifinals, we were presented with a great duel between Wade and Clayton. Wade took a 16-10 lead and seemed to have everything under control. Clayton, however, fought back and won six legs in a row to make it 16-16. Wade might have been a bit upset, you would think, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Machine" showed character and won 20-18.

Thus, Wade may prepare for his seventh final at the Winter Gardens, the first since 2015. Wade has already won 11 major titles in his career, with only Phil Taylor and Michael van Gerwen doing better.

In the final, Wade will meet the 24-year-old Littler. 'The Nuke' opened the year great with his first world title, immediately becoming the youngest darts world champion ever. Littler won his second major of the year with the UK Open in early March. Afterwards, by his high standards, it all fell apart. Littler did reach the final of the Premier League Darts, but especially the World Cup of Darts turned out to be a big disappointment. Alongside Luke Humphries, he lost on behalf of England in the opening match against Germany.

Moreover, Littler started this edition of the World Matchplay with the necessary doubts, having lost immediately in the opening round against Michael van Gerwen on his debut last year. However, Littler got off to an excellent start this year, winning in the opening round - with an average of almost 109, no one did better - with impressive 10-2 figures from Ryan Searle.

A true thriller followed in the second round, however. Littler was pushed to the limit by Jermaine Wattimena, but eventually won 13-11. Also in the quarter-finals Littler faced a lot of opposition. Andrew Gilding kept pushing for a long time, but Littler kept his composure and won 16-14.

So Littler got to take on that other top talent, Josh Rock, in the semifinals. The 24-year-old Northern Irishman, winner of the World Cup of Darts last month alongside Daryl Gurney, started the match like a whirlwind, going into the first break up 5-0. By the second break, however, Littler had already rallied back to 7-3 and then steamed on. Littler eventually won 17-14 to qualify for his first final at the World Matchplay.

If both men reach their level of the past week, we can probably look forward to an exciting and high-level final. For Wade, it will be especially important to keep up with Littler scoring and hitting his doubles at a high percentage. Littler on the other hand likes to have a lot of rhythm in a match and against the slower Wade, who also knows the necessary tricks to unbalance his opponent, he will not get that rhythm. So it remains to be seen how he handles that.