23/12/2023

Schedule Saturday afternoon at World Darts Championship with Jonny Clayton, Daryl Gurney and Steve Beaton

The last day of darts before the Christmas break is upon us. We still have eight duels to play in the second round of the World Darts Championship, four of which take place on Saturday afternoon.

We start the afternoon with a Belgian-Dutch showdown between Kim Huybrechts and Richard Veenstra. The latter already has one match under his belt at Alexandra Palace. Veenstra made his debut at the PDC World Darts Championship with a 3-0 victory over Ben Robb. With Huybrechts he meets the number 31 seed. That also means that the winner of this match will face Michael van Gerwen in the third round after Christmas. On the floor Huybrechts and Veenstra have already faced each other five times. Three times the Belgian won and twice the Dutchman was the strongest. The last encounter was at the end of September and it was won 6-4 by 'The Hurricane'.

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In the second match of Saturday afternoon, Callan Rydz faces Ricardo Pietreczko, who easily handled Mikuru Suzuki (3-0) in the first round. On paper Rydz is the favorite, but in terms of form Pietreczko is clearly in the best form. The German surprisingly won the German Darts Championship in October and showed at the European Darts Championship that he can also throw well on television. Two years ago he was a quarter-finalist at the World Darts Championship, and now he must defend the prize money he won at that event.

Steve Lennon gets to face number nine seed Jonny Clayton in his second round match. Lennon looked to be eliminated in his first match against Owen Bates, but the Irishman turned a 0-2 deficit into a 3-2 victory. As a result, 'Scuba Steve' seems to have a PDC Tour Card in his pocket for next season as well. The Welshman won the World Cup of Darts with compatriot Gerwyn Price in June and was in the final of the World Matchplay a month later. At all television tournaments in the fall, however, Clayton was invariably eliminated early.

In the final match of the afternoon, Steve Beaton crosses swords with Daryl Gurney. It could easily be the last World Championship match ever of "The Bronzed Adonis. Beaton announced after his victory over Wessel Nijman that he will retire from darts at the end of 2024, hoping to qualify for the World Darts Championship next year. In order to extend his 33rd World Championship appearance, the 1996 world champion will have to deal with Daryl Gurney, the number 27 in the world. Gurney has had some mediocre years, but with a quarterfinal finish at this year's World Matchplay, 'Superchin' showed something of his old class again. The head-to-head is incidentally in Beaton's favor. The 59-year-old Englishman managed to win seven of the 10 previous encounters, including the last five confrontations with Gurney.