Betting-Previews.com brings you darts betting tips and predictions for the 2021 PDC World Matchplay finals. Today, we take a look at the clash between two good friends in Peter Wright and Dimitri van den Bergh, who will cross swords on Sunday, July 24, at The Winter Gardens.
2021 PDC World Matchplay – Day 8 Recap
The two semi-final clashes promised exciting and close matches but produced one fairly disappointing affair. Krzysztof Ratajski started his meeting with Dimitri van den Bergh strong and claimed a comfortable 6-2 lead; before he lost his momentum, dropped 15 of the remaining 18 legs and lost 9-17.
In the second semi-final match of the day, Peter Wright and Michael van Gerwen went back and forth for the first few legs, before the Snakebite took the reins of the match into his own hands and cruised to a 17-10 victory.
Although all four had some iffy moment yesterday, it’s fair to say that the better players made it through. Now it all comes down to one best-of-35 Legs match, where Wright and van de Bergh will battle out for the prestigious title and a mouth-watering £150,000 in tournament winnings.
Wright P. – van den Bergh D.
Sunday, July 25 – 20:40 BST
Peter Wright enters the 2021 PDC World Matchplay finals priced as a 1.57 (Bet365) betting favourite, which isn’t surprising. His form on the tournament has been exceptional, having averaged 104.5 with a 45% check-out rate and 0.40 180s per leg.
Dimitri van den Bergh is averaging 99.9, with a 37.5% check-out rate and 0.45 180s per leg. Although the Belgian leads Wright in 180s per leg, the Snakebite has had a much more impressive all-around play, seeing how he has needed 15 darts or fewer to win 85% of his legs, while van den Bergh averages 70% in that department.
Wright and van den Bergh last met in May, when Wright won with 8-5. With that win, Wright is 9-2 up in the head-to-head and has won four of his last five meetings with van den Bergh. The DreamMaker last won against Wright at the PC17 in June 2019 with 6-5 but has since lost five and drew one – in April 2021 (6-6).
It’s also worth pointing out that these two have yet to meet in a long-format match before. Their longest was during the 2021 Premier League, where Wright secured the aforementioned 8-5 victory.
Both enter the 2021 PDC World Matchplay finals in great form, seeing how neither struggled to beat their opponents en route to the big stage. However, as far as form is concerned, van den Bergh has won all of his last seven, while Wright’s win streak sits at 11.
These two know each other well, which might suggest that we’re in for a close fixture; however, that usually isn’t the case for PDC World Matchplay finals.
Since 2013, all but one PDC World Matchplay finals ended with at least a five-leg gap. The sole exception was the 2018 finals, where Gary Anderson won against Mensur Suljović with 21-19. In 2019, Rob Cross beat Michael Smith 18-13, while last year, van den Bergh beat Anderson 18-10.
If you look for finals that ended with a winning margin of three or fewer legs, there were only five in the history of the tournament (1998, 1999, 2002, 2012, 2018).
That might seem like it matters much; however, it shows that if a player is going to win, it will likely be with a healthy margin. Based on what we have seen from van den Bergh and Wright so far, it’s very easy to favour the Snakebite, who has been in exceptional form and seems ripe to win his first PDC World Matchplay title after it slipped from his hands in 2017.
Prediction: Peter Wright -2.5 Legs – 2.21 at SBOBET
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