Max Hopp and Benito van de Pas will go up against each other, to find out who will be the opponent of Darius Labanauskas in the third round of the World Darts Championship.
Yesterday saw the last two matches from the first round as well as six matches from the second round. However, there was one fight in particular that ended up taking some headlines. It was the match between William O’Connor and Gerwyn Price, where it long seemed that Price would lose to an extremely well playing O’Connor.
However, at the 2-2 position in the fifth and decisive set, the Irishman miscalculated and went for double 1 as he was left with four remaining. Gerwyn Price took advantage of that mistake and broke to 3-2, but as you have to win by two clear legs in the deciding set from the second round onwards, he had to win the next leg, which he did and then won the match by 3-2.
In addition to Price, we also saw Justin Pipe and Jan Dekker move on to the second round as well as John Henderson, Steve Beaton, Chris Dobey, Danny Noppert and Dave Chisnall to advance to the third round.
Today there are eight more matches on the program, but for the first time in the tournament, the program consists only of matches from the second round.
From a PDC Nordic & Baltic point of view, the most interesting match will have to be the evening match between Max Hopp and Benito van de Pas. The winner of the game will be the opponent of Darius Labanauskas in the third round.
Other than this match, we will also see Darren Webster going up against Yuki Yamada in the afternoon. After this Mervyn King will take on Ciaran Teehan before Jonny Clayton faces Jan Dekker.
Ricky Evans will then end the afternoon session as he goes up against Mark McGeeney.
In the evening Nathan Aspinall will start against Danny Baggish, before Joe Cullen will have to meet Nico Kurz, who is the player, who has been one dart from a nine-darter at the World Championship.
Then the Max Hopp-Benito van de Pas match will go on the air before Peter Wright takes on Noel Malicdem in the last match of the evening.
All the matches can be seen on pdc.tv from 13.30 and 20.00.
Friday December 20
Afternoon Session (13.30)
4x Second Round
Darren Webster v Yuki Yamada (Second Round)
Mervyn King v Ciaran Teehan (Second Round)
Jonny Clayton v Jan Dekker (Second Round)
Ricky Evans v Mark McGeeney (Second Round)
Evening Session (20.00)
4x Second Round
Nathan Aspinall v Danny Baggish (Second Round)
Joe Cullen v Nico Kurz (Second Round)
Max Hopp v Benito van de Pas (Second Round)
Peter Wright v Noel Malicdem (Second Round)