Schedule and preview Saturday evening session 2022 World Matchplay including Wright, Van den Bergh and Clayton

The World Matchplay is back with the first action at the prestigious Winter Gardens set for Saturday night featuring the defending champion, Peter Wright who will kick off his campaign against Madars Razma.

It has been a barren year for 'Snakebite' since winning his World title but as ever, the switch is always there for Wright to turn on and produce his best as last year's tournament showed as he gave one of the most unstoppable runs in World Matchplay history.

In Razma, who will make his debutant, the Latvian will aim to act as a spoiler and cause an opening night shock. As ever watch out for his Treble 19 hitting and over the shorter format early, he could cause some problems.

The same can be said for another debutant in Rowby-John Rodriguez who started the year at Q-School sleeping while droves of match darts from Dragutin Horvat were missed which handed him his Tour Card.

Since then, he has kicked on like last season when he didn't have a Tour Card and so much so that he has managed to qualify after only seven months on the tour for his debut in Blackpool.

One of the main factors in that qualification was his run to the final of the European Darts Matchplay in Trier where he lost to Luke Humphries albeit missing a match dart in one of the best finals seen on the European Tour.

He faces Jonny Clayton who like Wright has fallen slightly off the back of success albeit reaching a ProTour final last weekend could show that he is playing some good darts again, it will be another to potentially add to the upset pile if 'Little John' can produce?

Dimitri van den Bergh will look to go one better than last year when he starts against Callan Rydz after reaching the final and losing to the unplayable Peter Wright.

A previous champion albeit not in Blackpool, Van den Bergh has won multiple World Series titles in the past few months and has kicked into gear again at the right time in his quest to win a second World Matchplay.

In Rydz, he is a former Quarter-Finalist on debut last time out but hasn't really hit the heights both on TV and on the tour since his breakout.

While starting the night is Krzysztof Ratajski facing Stephen Bunting, the former a semi-finalist in 2021 and both will look to kick on once more.

Krzysztof Ratajski v Stephen Bunting

Dimitri Van den Bergh v Callan Rydz

Peter Wright v Madars Razma

Jonny Clayton v Rowby-John Rodriguez