Worlds day 7, afternoon day 8 reaction post

I was going to hold off until the first round was done, and then just do twenty matches at once, but there's actually quite a bit to talk about in these two sessions so I'll jump the gun and throw my thoughts out.

Campbell/Sevada - Not really sure what went on in this one. I don't know whether this was the pressure from Matt knowing he needed to win to have any chance of saving his tour card, but whatever, first set was a combination of having neither scoring nor checking out, levelled at 1-1, then Adam played probably his best stuff with some decent check outs, although the key thing was probably Matt missing two set darts. After that, the scoring just went and that was that. Disappointing, and if he's not able to reclaim his card then that's a HUGE set back for the entire North American region.

van Barneveld/Bellmont - Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I wasn't watching this game, but lost a fair chunk on it (I was also on Matt in the first game for full disclosure). Got first leg, couldn't score, missed a couple of doubles, loses set, misses more doubles to gift Bellmont the second, then another mediocre scoring leg to kick off the third seals the deal. I didn't watch the game, but by all accounts he had a severe case of cantbearseditis, and if you can't get yourself up for a world championship, what can you get yourself up for?

Wade/Azemoto - Pretty much a textbook Wade performance. Had the scoring advantage, finished steadily, didn't really give Azemoto a sniff. Nothing really to talk about here.

Schindler/Burton - And this one, coupled with the Campbell match earlier, pretty much seals the tour card situation for 2026. Seven of the eight players have now dropped who were right below the cutoff line, only Beveridge getting the win but he's going to need round 4 to change anything. Decent first leg from Stephen but then Martin took control, Burton upped his game a lot in the second to take things to 1-1, but couldn't win another leg after that, just being strongly outscored for the most part and missing what few chances he was given.

Rydz/Kovacs - Another one with not much to talk about. Patrik had the odd flash, actually keeping pace with Callan in terms of scoring for a lot of it, but couldn't really do it consistently enough to give Rydz too many problems, advancing in straight sets.

Tricole/Sakai - I'm not overly surprised by this one. Many of the Asian players have enough about them to be able to hang about with someone in this if they get a good draw, and no disrespect to Thibault, this is one of the best draws he could have got. He did need to rely on a pretty darned bad display of doubling from Tricole to get the first, but the second was very steady, while the third was again a display of mutually missed doubles, and you wonder if the fight had gone out of Thibault at that stage being two down.

Joyce/Bates - Another disappointing one for me, having taken the underdog who never really got out of the blocks. Bates just could never get any scoring going whatsoever, while Ryan was impeccable on the outer ring, which denied Owen a dart at a double in the first two sets, outside of the one leg he won. Bates did perk up in the third, did zero in the first leg but was allowed three clear at 40 and the same at 36 in the next two legs, but couldn't convert either chance which you simply have to do at this level. Would have been an enormous way back from there, but at 2-1 in legs the game would actually have been back on throw at that point. Oh well. Also a memo to both players - going bull with 66 left is really, really stupid. Stop doing that.

de Decker/Munyua - Jesus christ have Belgium had a bad worlds. Huybrechts, Vandenbogaerde, van den Bergh and Baetens already went out, and now de Decker falls as well to make it a very improbable clean sweep for the non-Belgians. Oddly, he started looking fine, Munyua got a nice twelve in the first set but Mike was otherwise not in trouble, but then he started out really not scoring in set 2, going down 2-0, pulling it back despite missing eight darts in the third which gifted David a chance for the set, the last two legs being very solid again. Then he was down 0-2 again with more poor play in both aspects of the game, dodging a lot more set darts, but letting Munyua take it, missing a bunch more doubles in the fourth, including three for the match, then the fifth was more weirdness - going seven perfect to start the set and break, but then miss a dart for 2-0 seeing David check 135 on the bull, missing more for the third leg, before not scoring as he went out.

I'll update the second round predictions post after the evening session. Might be late tonight, might be tomorrow at some point.