Smith will face James Wade in his semi-final on Sunday, who had no problems with Mervyn King on Saturday afternoon: 4-0. Wright meets Gary Anderson in a Scottish get-together, who threw Luke Humphries home: 5-2.
Reigning world champions Price and Smith did not give each other an inch in the exciting match. The first seven sets all went with the darts. The highlight of the encounter between the two guns was Price’s nine-darter in the second leg of the fourth set. After William Borland and Darius Labanauskas, Price was already the third player to score nine perfect arrows this World Cup via a beautiful triple 20-triple 19-double 12 finish. That has never happened before in the history of the PDC World Cup.
In the eighth set, Price got two match darts at 2-2 to reach the semi-finals, but the title holder failed on both double 20 and double 10. Smith gratefully took the lifebuoy thrown in and took the lead again in sets via double 8 equal: 4-4. In the deciding ninth set Smith first missed a match dart on double 12, then another on double 6, but the third dart to finish the match took bully boy well.
Rydz pushes Wright to the limit
Rydz got off to a phenomenal start against Wright and took the first set by scoring one hundred percent on his doubles: 3-0. In the second set, which Wright was allowed to start, Rydz continued his high level and took the set of snakebite off.
In the third set, Wright proved not to be resigned to the rule of the man from Newcastle, and broke Rydz by taking his set and narrowing the deficit to 2-1. Rydz, in turn, was not discouraged, and put the break back in the fourth set: 3-1.
Rydz failed to cash in on his break and handed over the fifth set to Wright. snakebite in turn cashed in on that break, and drew the score completely in his own sixth set: 3-3. In the important seventh set, both players got a handful of darts to make it 4-3, but where Wright kept missing, Rydz ultimately didn’t.
Peter Wright
ⓒ PDC/Lawrence Lustig
Wright knew he needed to win the remaining two sets to reach the semi-finals, and the Scotsman kept his nerves under control in set 8. With three legs won in a row, he came to 4-4 and immediately broke Rydz in the all-deciding ninth set. Wright also took the second leg via a nice bullseye finish and as a result Rydz suddenly found himself with his back against the wall. But also The Riot was able to deal with the enormous tension and tied the score again (2-2) in the ninth set, so that an extension was necessary. In it, the coin fell in the direction of Wright. He immediately broke Rydz for 3-2 and got three match darts in the next leg. The first, on double 20, was enough.
Both players ended the exciting game with nice numbers. Wright finished on an average of almost 100 points per three arrows (99.75), threw the highest score of 180 seventeen times and ended up with a finish percentage of 33.3 percent. Rydz, the number 36 in the world, had a higher finish percentage (41.9 percent), but a slightly lower average (97.8) and threw the highest score ‘only’ eleven times.
Callan Rydz is disappointed, he just doesn’t manage to take out Peter Wright.
ⓒ PDC/Lawrence Lustig