Luke Woodhouse (#33 FRH, 90.82 (#35), 524-486 (51.88%, #50))
Lourence Ilagan (#105 FRH, 84.47 (#87), 154-119 (56.41%, #11))
The break out year for Mike de Decker that many have been thinking would happen for some time has happened. We've always known at his best he's an excellent player, but didn't really show it quite often enough, but he's tightened up his entire game and while him getting a Pro Tour title (which he did) isn't something that would make too many observers blink, doing enough to not only qualify for the Grand Prix (his maiden title coming in August after missing the Matchplay) but to win it, taking out Heta, Anderson, Wade, van den Bergh before Luke Humphries in a final where, having been 4-1 up but pegged back to 4-4 in sets, getting over the line might have been a question - I don't think anyone realistically saw that. It's a huge achievement that will have filled him with confidence, backing it up with TV wins over Josh Rock Michael Smith in a 5-0 demolition, and then three victories at Minehead before running into Luke Littler, makes us think it's probably not a fluke and his top sixteen position in every rating is more likely to be legitimate than not. His results before that Pro Tour win, where I don't think it's fair to say he had a friendly draw outside of needing to eliminate Dave Chisnall in the board final, have been up and down, maybe he could have got a bit more out of the UK Open where he lost to Ricky Evans (but he avenged that one to win his Pro Tour title), maybe he could have got a bit more on the Euro Tour, but that's in the past. Since he got a title, the floor has basically been board final or last sixteen every time. He's not dropping the easy games, and he's showing his top level game enough where he can, and does, win titles.
Luke's had a wee bit of an unfortunate season, mainly with de Decker (and later Edhouse amongst others) picking up big pieces of cake to prevent him from being seeded in this event, leaving him as one of the really dangerous floaters in the Pro Tour pool. It's been a good season of progression from Woody. Luke got three wins at the UK Open including showing bottle to take deciders over world champions in RvB and Michael Smith, perhaps wanting that last sixteen game against Ricky Evans back, he also reached a first major semi final in the European Championship, coming through a tough if not elite line up of Ross Smith, Searle and van Duijvembode, before losing out to eventual winner Ritchie Edhouse (who would also do for him at Minehead later in the season), and he's doing enough on the floor to have got to both of the "hard" majors in the Matchplay and Grand Prix, although he would be edged out in those by Aspinall and van den Bergh. He's still searching for a first title and couldn't repeat his final run in 2023 on the floor, but has got to a couple of European Tour final sessions, and has added a couple of Pro Tour semi finals this year, so it does have the feeling that getting that first win, or at least getting to another final, isn't that far away, and that the push up into the top 32 has merely been delayed.
Lourence is very much a veteran of the scene at this stage and is making his seventh straight Ally Pally appearance, and his ninth overall in the PDC, and will ideally want to be breaking a string of first round exits, which has only been broken by one deciding leg win two years ago over Rowby John Rodriguez, maybe he just needs me to be the lucky charm given I was at that session. The bad news for Lourence is that I will be very much at work when this game is played (actually, it might mainly be on my lunch hour, particularly if Plaisier lays down the pwnhammer on Azemoto), but you get my drift. Ilagan is here through the Asian Tour rankings, where he finished second behind new discovery Alexis Toylo, being able to pick up three titles in three different weekends (two over Toylo, the other over Muramatsu) and add on another four finals for another consistent season at that level. Excluding those who only played a really limited number of events, Lourence would finish fourth on averages on the Asian Tour, behind fellow qualifiers Goto, Nebrida and Toylo, that average being 85 maybe being misleading, and he also won the Asian Championship, beating another player who's here in Sandro Sosing in the final, this booked his ticket to the Grand Slam, where he didn't win a game in an awkward group with Littler, Barry and van den Bergh, but did take three wins over those first two players and average in the 90's while doing so, which I think gives more of an indication as to where he's at than his Asian Tour average.
That said, I do think Luke wins this first round game, and should win it comfortably. The projection is showing a winning chance in the high 80's - I think that might be a tad of an overestimate, but we've seen enough over the years from Ilagan to know that if Woodhouse shows up with his A game, or probably even his B game, he should advance pretty comfortably, assuming Lourence doesn't put on a show and stun us all. de Decker is a different kettle of fish. Luke is certainly good enough to ask questions, come to me six months ago and I'd be calling it a coin flip as the two were kind of in the same area in terms of the rankings, but Mike's pulled away enough now to be approaching a 2-1 favourite. It'd be a fun game which could legitimately go either way, but de Decker should be the favourite and should be moving on to the last 32.
No comments:
Post a Comment