Thursday, July 25, 2024
Column CM134
World Matchplay 2024 – Semifinals and Finall
Semifinals
In the semifinals of the World Matchplay stood the three players ranked 1, 2 and 3 in the Order of Merit (and, accordingly, the three top seeds in tournament) and one non seeded player.
In the first semifinal the number 1 in the Order of Merit and the number 1 seed, Luke Humphries, faced the not seeded James Wade who had only qualified at the last minute for the tournament. By reaching the semifinal Wade proved he qualified rightly – it had been a long time since one had seen him so strong and convincing. On the other side it was no surprise that Luke Humphries was the favourite to win the tournament.
For both players, the semifinal was no easy match. They know each other quite well; they are friends and practiced together to prepare for the tournament. The format was now best of 33 – not a problem for players with such a lot of experience.
When you now look back at the statistics you will see that Wade was more consistent throughout with an average of over 100 while Humphries’ average went up and down and was at 94.11 at the time when Wade drew 4-4.
But I’ll start at the beginning…
Humphries had one of his by now almost typical lightning starts into the match and quickly moved 2-0 into the lead. But then, Wade settled as well, and they went into the first break with Humphries leading 3-2 (and each had already scored two 180s).
Similarly, evenly matched was the second mini session in which the lead for a short while switched to Wade but Humphries drew even at 5 before the break. This was the phase of Humphries’ lowest average in the match, and he was not really clinical on his doubles either.
Until the third break the match stayed balanced but then Humphries got stronger and regained the lead. After that, Humphries was the better player for the rest of the match and extended the lead more and more. One of the reasons was that Wade missed some doubles and Humphries ruthlessly used his chances. A highlight was a 156 finish by Humphries to lead 14-9.
Humphries progressed with a 17-10 win into his first World Matchplay final.
In the second semifinal the number 2 and 3 players in the world clashed – however, before the tournament started neither Michael van Gerwen nor Michael Smith were among the top favourites to win. Neither had played consistently great recently but each had fared really well to this point in the tournament.
But the second semifinal turned out to be the not so good one of the two…
Smith in particular took some time to settle into the match and to hit his doubles – before the first break he was 1-4 behind and had a hitting rate on the doubles of 10 percent. It didn’t help much that he scored high…
It got better in the second session and Smith managed to draw 5-5. But after the second break van Gerwen began to dominate the match and stayed in the lead most of the time, though Smith got close from time-to-time (and van Gerwen experienced some double-trouble). Smith didn’t use these chances well – perhaps he just couldn’t.
With what seemed to be the last of his energy Smith managed to draw even at 12 but after that he ran out of steam completely and was no longer able to offer any resistance. He went down 12-17 to van Gerwen. It was sort of a typical Michael Smith match. van Gerwen advanced unbeaten.
Final
In the final of the World Matchplay the number 1 player in the World, Luke Humphries, and the number 3 of the world, Michael van Gerwen (he slid down to third place before the semifinals), met. Both players had played a good tournament which one not necessarily had expected from van Gerwen. Probably Humphries had to work harder to get into the final than van Gerwen and, so far, with the exception of the semifinal, Humphries hadn’t really sparkled.
Humphries went into the final as the favourite – he had averaged over 100 in all his matches (with an over 108 average in his first match, the highest average of the tournament so far) and he had won his last seven games against the Dutchman.
In van Gerwn’s favour was that he had won this tournament already and that he is really good at upping his game throughout a tournament.
So, one hoped for a thrilling match. Not even the commentators were in agreement about the possible winner. Michael van Gerwen probably was convinced that he would win it while Humphries probably more “hoped” he could win it…
And so…
It was the Dutchman who had the better start and with conviction was in the lead 3-2 before the first break. But after the break Humphries returned reassured and with belief and won four of the five legs of the session. His average improved as well.
After Humphries had gotten the lead, he never looked back. MVG often got very close, and Humphries’ lead often got extremely narrow.
In the final phase of the match – in which van Gerwen just missed to draw 16-16 and had some trouble hitting his doubles – both players finally played with freedom and started to sparkle…
In the end and with a 100 checkout (20, tops, tops) for the 18-15 win, Humphries relegated a very disappointed looking van Gerwen to second place and won his first World Matchplay title.
