Thibault Tricole (#62 FRH, 87.59 (#70), 350-360 (49.30%, #71))
Joe Comito (#163 FRH, 83.96 (#92), 126-91 (58.06%, #5))
This ought to be one of the least controversial sections to call. Luke's had an extremely solid season in terms of performance, remaining one of the three or four players who can legitimately stake a claim to being the best player in the world, but maybe he could have done a bit more in terms of majors - he did claim a first Matchplay title and retain the Players Championship, but missed out in two further finals to players he really should be beating (Dimitri at the UK Open, de Decker at the Grand Prix), and the results in the run up to the worlds might have been of some concern (losing in the Euros quarters to Wattimena, then crashing out of a relatively trivial group in the Grand Slam) were it not for a statement win over Littler at Minehead recently. It's a tricky section of the draw - van Barneveld, Wade and then Bunting if seedings go to plan is not the easiest way to win a quarter by any stretch of the imagination, and you'd then have the mouthwatering prospect of a repeat of last year's final at the semi final stage, but Humphries clearly is that good at this point in time that he can run the table and retain his title. Whether he does is another question.
Thibault is a known extremely solid player, best known to most from his 2022 WDF final appearance where he narrowly lost to Neil Duff, having come through games in deciding sets to Cameron Menzies and Andy Baetens (both of which look much better now than they did at the time to get there), as well as quarter final run in the World Cup last year with Jacques Labre, getting past Northern Ireland in the group stages then South Africa in the first qualifying round. A new tour card holder in 2024, this is not Tricole's first appearance at the event, he won through the notoriously difficult West Europe qualifier to play last year, coming through a tight tussle with Mario Vandenbogaerde before being easily defeated by Rob Cross. His first year on tour has been fine, he's made it here, generally winning more often than not in the opening round of Pro Tour events and having a peak of a semi final in August, only being beaten by the odd leg in 13 against Menzies, but I'm sure he would like to have made a better effort on the European Tour, where he got to just the one event and was comfortably beaten by Andrew Gilding.
Joe is making his debut here, which surprises me as I'm sure he's played before, but it is a first appearance, after making a dramatic late run to finish top of the DPA rankings. Being well behind coming into the final event of the penultimate weekend, he binked that and then in the last weekend made the final of every event, winning two of them, finishing solidly ahead of Brandon Weening to claim the title. Joe's results in the database have come almost exclusively from the DPA tour, but we have seen him on big stages before - he got destroyed by Humphries in the World Series this year where he barely averaged 70, averaging almost as badly the year before in a whitewash defeat to Damon Heta, and back in 2022 he was again down in the seventies not winning a leg against Michael Smith. I'm not sure if he's just a good floor player, or just ran hotter than the sun in one weekend. We'll find out soon enough.
Thibault should get through We've got enough data on Joe to be confident in projections and Tricole seems a prohibitive favourite - that many books have him at around the 1/5 mark does not seem out of the ordinary in the slightest, that's where the projections say Tricole should be, if not even shorter. Then in the next round, Luke should be an even shorter favourite, the quick look on year long stats doesn't even give the Frenchman a 7% chance. God knows what it would be against Comito. bet365 are currently showing a line of "stage of elimination" for Humphries at 5/1. You may need to be quick, but that could represent immediate, easy value just by taking a long odds on bet on the world champion.
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