2019-20 PDC World Darts Championship – Max Hopp vs Benito van de Pas Preview & Prediction

THE FACTS

When is Max Hopp vs Benito van de Pas taking place? Friday 20^th December, 2019 – evening

Where is Max Hopp vs Benito van de Pas taking place? Alexandra Palace, London

What channel is Max Hopp vs Benito van de Pas on? Sky Sports Darts

Where can I stream Max Hopp vs Benito van de Pas? Sky Sports subscribers can stream the match online via Sky Go

Where can I get tickets for Max Hopp vs Benito van de Pas? https://www.pdc.tv/william-hill-world-darts-championship-tickets

What was the outcome in the last meeting? Benito van de Pas beat Max Hopp 6-4

THE PLAYERS

MAX HOPP

• Former PDC World Youth Champion Max Hopp made his PDC World Championship debut back in December 2012 as a 16-year-old. He has yet to get further than the last 32 at Alexandra Palace and lost to Michael van Gerwen at that stage of the 2018-19 World Championship.
• Hopp’s best run in a PDC major ranking tournament came when he reached the semi-finals at the European Championship in October 2018. Since then he has struggled to make an impact in the big TV tournaments with a last 16 appearance at the World Matchplay this year being his best showing.
• Runs into the latter stages of tournaments have been a rarity for Hopp in 2019, even though he did reach a final of a Players Championship tournament in May and the semi-finals in a Euro Tour event in April. Apart from those performances he only managed one quarter-final appearance on the tour from May onward.

BENITO VAN DE PAS

• Benito van de Pas battled to a 3-2 win against Gabriel Clemens in round one. Clemens missed four match darts as Van de Pas rallied from 2-0 down in the final set to claim a welcome victory.
• It wasn’t a vintage performance from Van de Pas as he finished the match with an average of just 89 and a checkout percentage of 34%. He was also outscored on the number of legs won with Clemens winning 11 of the 21 legs played.
• Van de Pas has reached the last 16 at the PDC World Championship in four of the last five years – one of those runs included a victory against Max Hopp in their only previous meeting at Alexandra Palace in December 2015.

THE PREDICTION

Both of these players made their World Championship debut at a young age so have been regulars on the big stage for a number of years. Van de Pas has a better much record at Alexandra Palace than Hopp, but the Dutchman has slipped down the rankings of late due to a loss of form and he is striving to get his career back on track. Even though Hopp’s own results on tour have not been great in the latter part of this season, he probably has more consistency in his game and is predicted to win this match in five sets.