PDC World Darts Championship 2020 preview and schedule: Sunday December 29, evening session

Let's jump right into it, shall we? This first match is one of the most lopsided line-ups we've seen in a recent World Darts Championship quarter-final. One the one hand, we have Michael van Gerwen. He's won the lot. MVG is the defending world champion. Everywhere he goes, he's the favourite. And against him, Darius Labanauskas. The Lithuanian's on just his second Alexandra Palace journey. He's won more than two matches at a PDC major for the first time. This is a darting David versus Goliath.

Of course, David was armed with a slingshot. Labanauskas' weapon of choice is unerring consistency. The Nordic & Baltic's top man has averaged around 94 for the tournament, and hasn't deviated from the mean. He's got his wins by simply outlasting more erratic opponents. Max Hopp and Steve Beaton, the two seeds he most recently felled, are two players who struggle to kill off opponents.

Michael van Gerwen is different gravy, however. Just ask Ricky Evans and Stephen Bunting, two players absolutely pummelled into submission by the world number one. He'll be out to dominate Labanauskas from the outset. Can the unseeded man keep up with that trademark van Gerwen scoring? Absolutely everything is against Labanauskas here. Which, of course, would make it an all-time great World Darts Championship moment if he somehow beats all odds.

Some of the confidence Gerwyn Price accrued from an excellent win over John Henderson was whittled away in the 4-2 defeat of Simon Whitlock. At this stage of the tournament, you only want to be getting better. Only three players saw a drop in average between rounds three and four, and Nathan Aspinall's was negligible. Price, meanwhile, saw his average drop a whopping 12 points. He needs to address that, and get back to the power scoring that makes him a constant threat.

The other player whose average fell between rounds (by almost four points) was Glen Durrant. Duzza looked all set against Chris Dobey when he took a 3-1 lead in sets. But Dobey refused to lie down, and it led to a mini crisis in confidence for the 27th seed. But Durrant recovered, winning out in the North-East derby, and has an eye on the title. This will be Price's toughest test, as well as Durrant's; the three-time PDC major semi-finalist has gained more experience of this sort of match in a year than many PDC veterans.

The pair have played each other eight times this year. Some games have been spectacular, and very few have featured a sub-par showing. Both are likely to recover from respective dips, and between them the pair could serve up a complete World Darts Championship cracker.

Click here for more information on the PDC World Darts Championship, which takes place at the Alexandra Palace between December 13 and January 1.

19:15 Michael van Gerwen v Darius Labanauskas
21:15 Glen Durrant v Gerwyn Price