Schedule Friday night at World Darts Championship including Raymond van Barneveld, Chris Dobey and Dimitri van den Bergh

Raymond van Barneveld had to wait a while for it, but can finally start his 31st participation in the World Darts Championship on Friday night. His tournament begins with a meeting with Radek Szaganski.

In recent years, the World Darts Championship has not been a success, whereas it used to be the tournament for which the Dutchman could compete for victory. The past two editions did not help the draw, with early defeats against Rob Cross (2022) and Gerwyn Price (2023). The draw has been more favourable to 'Barney' this year. First, up, Szaganski, who surprisingly won a Pro Tour tournament earlier this year but looked far from convincing in his first round win over Marko Kantele.

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Should Van Barneveld get through this match, Jim Williams awaits in the third round. The Welshman stunned with a 3-0 victory over two-time world champion Peter Wright. In the last sixteen, a clash with 16-year-old phenom Luke Littler possibly beckons. But we are getting ahead of ourselves and that is still a long way off.

Opening the session though, Dimitri van den Bergh will play his first match of the tournament against Florian Hempel. Van den Bergh has bad memories of the German at the World Darts Championship. Two years ago, Van den Bergh lost 3-1 to Hempel in the second round. That was the only time Hempel won over 'The Dreammaker'. The other three times the Belgian and German played against each other, all were won by Van den Bergh.

Jermaine Wattimena returns to action on Friday evening. The Dutchman achieved a great victory over Fallon Sherrock in the first round, after 'The Machine Gun' lost the first set. In the second round, Martin Schindler will be his opponent. Wattimena and Schindler have already played each other nine times on the tour. Six of those duels were won by the German, but the last confrontation went 6-4 to the Dutchman.

The final match of the evening is between Chris Dobey and William O'Connor. The latter showed good form earlier this week with a resounding victory over Bhav Patel, who could not even take a leg against the Irishman. With Dobey, however, O'Connor meets an excellent opponent who has been performing very consistently this season.

After his quarterfinal at the previous World Championship, Dobey surprisingly managed to win the Masters, which earned him an invitation to the Premier League Darts. Moreover, at the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and the European Darts Championship, 'Hollywood' made it to the quarterfinals each time. Dobey also usually performs well at the World Darts Championship, so O'Connor has been warned.

World Darts Championship 2024 playing schedule

Friday, Dec. 22

Evening session (from 7 p.m.)

Dimitri Van den Bergh v Florian Hempel (R2)

Martin Schindler v Jermaine Wattimena (R2)

Raymond van Barneveld v Radek Szaganski (R2)

Chris Dobey v William O'Connor (R2)