James Hurrell (#81 FRH, 88.58 (#58), 293-320 (47.80%, #79))
Jim Long (#168 FRH, 85.21 (#83), 99-91 (52.11%, #46))
This might be the most under the radar van Gerwen has been going into a World Championship since, well, forever? Seems like all the talk has been about the two Lukes, there's hype around Anderson, around Bunting, there's even more talk about Mike de Decker and other similar names it seems. Still, MvG comes into the event as one of the players we can realistically look at as a possible finalist, being on the other half of the draw to Littler and Humphries being somewhat of a contributing factor to that. In terms of raw performances, this is by no means his best level of play, but his best level of play was arguably the greatest player we've ever seen in terms of peak, which is hard to sustain, and it's still good enough that he can realistically win any game whenever he steps up to the oche. In terms of results, Michael would have wanted more - the closest he got to a major title was the Matchplay final where he stopped Littler straight out of the gate and only lost by the odd break in the final to Humphries, but aside from that it's been a bit of a trainwreck - losing to Mensur at the UK Open, Gurney in six straight legs at the Grand Prix, Ando at the Euros is I guess fine after beating Clemens, but he couldn't get out of his Slam group finishing behind Ryan Joyce, and then also lost his opening game at the PC Finals to Ian White. That's not van Gerwen esque by any stretch. A solitary European Tour win seems like very little and the season overall was slightly worse than last year, which in turn was the worst he's ever had outside of severely truncated years, and while he did pick up a couple of Pro Tours, he did go on a dry spell of over a year without winning one which seems unthinkable. The numbers are still top, top level, it just seems that some other players have just slightly passed him by, the lack of just winning stuff frequently maybe being a bit of a knock on how well he can play.
James Hurrell won his card on the points system in January after a very solid BDO/WDF career where he was always a contender but never really lived up to the rankings in terms of major results, James had gained some limited experience at the main PDC level following some call ups based on last season's Challenge Tour rankings, and I think he'll be happy enough with his first season, getting into the worlds putting him in a relatively decent position to hold his card in twelve months time. The bulk of his play has naturally been on the floor, and he came out of the blocks with an opening quarter final, getting a win over Michael Smith and only being stopped by Luke Littler, and he'd make it two out of three in event five to give him a very strong start to the year. He'd add a further quarter final in the summer, but has been moderately quiet in the second half of the year with three board finals being the best he's done on the Pro Tour outside of that one run. It was enough to get him to the Players Championship Finals, and he'd come close to beating Danny Noppert in a quality game where Hurrell had the higher average but just get pipped 6-5. His other TV appearance was also a first game defeat, that early Pro Tour run getting him a first round UK Open bye, but he would surprisingly lose to qualifier Joe Croft. The European Tour is one obvious area of improvement, obviously the number of quali spots was severely cut this year but he'd like to make more than just the one, appearing in the opener in Belgium, losing to Luke Woodhouse, but not making another one since then. It's been an alright season, but maybe he'd have liked a little bit more.
Jim is back here after a six year absence, and makes his second appearance, and he's looking to repeat what he did that time, where he got through his first game (this would be the infamous Mickey Mansell game) before losing a tight one to a Dutch opponent, although Benito van de Pas was alright at the time, he's certainly no Michael van Gerwen. Jim is here through the CDC rankings, finishing joint top of the table with Leonard Gates and by definition being the top Canadian player, fellow seniors player Dave Cameron pushing him somewhat close with Jacob Taylor being a bit further back again. Long took two of the twelve titles, one in Illinois and one in New York, and back to back finals in the last weekend, both in deciding legs, would be enough to seal his Ally Pally spot. Jim also featured in the Cross Border Challenge where he lost in the quarters to Stowe Buntz, and was cruelly denied a Grand Slam place in the Continental Cup, where Gates would pip him 8-7 in the final after Long led 7-6 and apparently had championship darts. presumably going a weird route on 76. Jim also had a nice run at the World Seniors, getting past compatriot Cameron, Martin Adams then Paul Hogan before losing to eventual winner John Henderson in the semi final, not exactly a bad list of opponents to beat.
I think we have enough data on Jim to be fairly confident that James will come through the opener. Hurrell is projecting at over 80% - I think maybe that's an overestimate, but there is a bit of a solid difference in the numbers and I can't see Long being able to cause too much trouble, unless Hurrell is off his game or has a slow start. The second round game looks just about as comfortable, I've not even got Hurrell at 20% over van Gerwen, Michael's not the all-world talent he was, but is still clearly good enough to be a substantial favourite and one of the seeds with the easiest task in terms of getting ro round three.
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