Schedule and preview Thursday afternoon session 2021/22 PDC World Darts Championship including Dobey-Humphries

Thursday sees the last darting action of 2021 with the fourth round set to conclude starting with the afternoon session at the PDC World Darts Championship.

This featuring a quarter of the draw which has been blown wide open. Case and point is the first game between Raymond Smith and Mervyn King.

Smith took out Devon Petersen earlier in the tournament, as well as Jamie Hughes and Florian Hempel who himself defeated Dimitri van den Bergh. A victory against his next high profile opponent in Mervyn King would hand the Aussie ace a lot of thinking as a Tour Card would be his.

King though will have other ideas as he aims for another good run after a renaissance at times in his career over the last 18 months. A Quarter-Final spot awaits and caveats for both players are there.

Following that are two more success stories of the tournament facing off as Alan Soutar faces Callan Rydz.

Soutar has rode his luck getting past Diogo Portela, Mensur Suljovic and Jose de Sousa all by the skin of his teeth. The Scot has risen towards the top 50 in only his first year and will aim to dump out one of the top prospects in the game.

Rydz made light work of Nathan Aspinall yesterday and has not dropped a set so far in this tournament in also defeating Yuki Yamada and Brendan Dolan. A real player to watch as the tournament continues - he will hope to add another milestone to his tally with a World Championship Quarter-Final.

A player who knows a lot about this point of the tournament is Luke Humphries who has delivered on the biggest stage in recent years. He faces Chris Dobey.

This in what could be dubbed a COVID derby with both the recipients of a bye after Michael van Gerwen and Dave Chisnall both testing positive.

Both now have a great chance and will return to the stage for the first time post Christmas with a spot in the Quarter-Finals on the line.

Raymond Smith v Mervyn King

Alan Soutar v Callan Rydz

Chris Dobey v Luke Humphries