Ian White (#58 FRH, 89.01 (#54), 323-315 (50.63%, #60))
Sandro Sosing (#130 FRH, 84.43 (#88), 77-86 (47.24%, #80))
What a year it's been for Ritchie Edhouse, with what must have been one of the most unlikely major wins for some time when he was able to claim the European Championship, launching himself into the seeding positions here as he looks to reach the last 32 of this tournament for the first time. We'll start with the highlight - he set out a marker with a demolition job of Gian van Veen, averaging just shy of 110, before holding his never in a decider against Michael Smith, getting twice the legs that Gary Anderson did in the quarters, winning by a similar scoreline against Luke Woodhouse to reach the final, where he faced what looked to be a spent Jermaine Wattimena, who couldn't maintain the level of play he had in previous rounds, allowing Ritchie to win 11-3 and get a first major. It's been a year of progression on TV outside of that though, with first appearances in the Matchplay and Grand Prix, albeit he would lose to Chris Dobey and Jonny Clayton in the opening rounds, while he did get through the group stage of the Grand Slam, navigating a difficult looking group without defeat, only to lose to Rob Cross at the last sixteen stage. The Minehead events were hit and miss, losing his first game at the UK Open to Boris Krcmar, but he did win his opener last month before hitting Luke Littler in round two which is probably the best he could do. Making all the events indicates floor results are OK - on the floor he matched last season's tally of two Pro Tour semi finals, and he'd also make a pair of European Tour quarter finals as part of a five tournament spell where he made the final day on every occasion. While his numbers are not stratospheric, although in any given match they can be, Ritchie's always had a knack of getting the best out of the level of play he has, and with him now having the ability to handle longer matches, he might be able to get something going here (and by something, I mean a win and then losing to Littler probably).
Ian comes back for a thirteenth PDC worlds, and he'll be hoping it's not unlucky like the twelfth where he went out in round one to Tomoya Goto. Ian ended up around two thirds of the way down the Pro Tour qualification list, a bit down on last season, but enough to make it here and keep the tour card safe by a comfortable margin. On the floor, Ian has been more or less where is ranking suggests he should be - good enough that he's winning his opening game more often than not, but not doing enough on a consistent basis to get back anywhere near the top 32, with just four board victories all season, one of which he was able to convert into a quarter final, but nothing more than that. The European Tour didn't offer much assistance, he made Sindelfingen as an alternate and won just a single leg against Chris Dobey, while he was again an alternate in Switzerland, getting another tough draw in Michael Smith, nearly getting over the line but coming out the wrong side of a 6-5 scoreline. TV has been basically non-existent and barely more than the minimum, losing his first UK Open game to Mickey Mansell, but he did at least make the Players Championship Finals, and got a huge shock win over Michael van Gerwen by 6-1, rolling back the years to his Euro Tour winning days and levels with a 102 average - only to drop that by 25+ points in the next round and not win a single leg against Mike de Decker. That shows that the game is there, it's just not there consistently enough and often enough these days to be much more than someone making up the top 64 numbers, and now into his mid-50's I think he may be at the peak of his ranking going forward right now.
Sandro is back here making a second appearance, having made a debut twelve months ago where it looked like he struggled to show his best game, averaging a mediocre 75 in a straight sets defeat to Lee Evans. Sosing has qualified through the Asian Championshp - in that event he got to the semi finals pretty comfortably, dodging more or less all the top names, then edged out Lee Lok Yin to reach a final against Lourence Ilagan. He'd won his Ally Pally spot by that stage - the top two made it, but with a Grand Slam spot on the line, Ilagan's experience showed as Sosing missed doubles in both the first two legs, and could do nothing more than get three straight holds of throw as Lourence won 7-3. Sosing played what looked like the full Asian Tour - ending up outside the top 20 in averages (although if you exclude part timers, you can arguably say he's top 16) with an overall mark of 82, but converted enough of his chances into results to finish a respectable seventh on the money table. In the course of that tour, Sandro picked up one title with wins at the business end over the Japanese pair of Azemoto and Goto, and would add a further final later in the season where he came up short against Man Lok Leung. With the strength of players in his home country, he was never in consideration for the World Cup, so that's about all we have on him.
Ian should be fine in round one, the projections are actually fairly close but that does not take into account Sosing's wild inconsistency, he's among the weaker of the Asian qualifiers and I doubt he has the scoring often enough to prevent White from advancing. Year long, Edhouse is doing a bit more than Ian in terms of numbers, and the projections put him at a bit more than 60/40 - but with his best form obviously coming in the last few months, I wouldn't blame anyone who's going to call this a 2-1 sort of game.
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