2020 Betfred World Matchplay – Gary Anderson vs Michael Smith Preview & Prediction
THE FACTS
When is Gary Anderson vs Michael Smith taking place? Saturday 25th July, 2020 (session starts at 20:00 (UK))
Where is Gary Anderson vs Michael Smith taking place? Marshall Arena, Milton Keynes
What channel is Gary Anderson vs Michael Smith on? Sky Sports
Where can I stream Gary Anderson vs Michael Smith? Sky Sports subscribers can stream the match online via Sky Go
Where can I get tickets for Gary Anderson vs Michael Smith? The 2020 Betfred World Matchplay will take place behind closed doors
What was the outcome in the last meeting? Michael Smith beat Gary Anderson 10-7
THE LOWDOWN
GARY ANDERSON
- 2018 World Matchplay champion Gary Anderson has defeated Justin Pipe, James Wade and Simon Whitlock on his way to reaching the semi-finals and he now faces his protégé Michael Smith for a place in the final.
- The Flying Scotsman produced his best performance of this year’s tournament to see off the challenge of Whitlock in the last eight. Anderson had led for most of the contest but only finally managed to shake off the Australian with a run of four consecutive legs when the match was finely poised at 12 legs all.
- His average of 98.09 against Whitlock was almost six points higher than his previous best in the opening two rounds, and this was despite a checkout percentage of just 31.4% which shows how impressive his scoring was during the contest.
MICHAEL SMITH
- Michael Smith moved one step closer to repeating his run to the final 12 months ago by defeating Poland’s Krzystof Ratajski 16-13 in an enthralling quarter-final encounter on Thursday evening.
- The key phase of the match came when Smith responded superbly after Ratajski took out a 161 checkout to go 8-7 ahead, as the number five seed won seven of the next eight legs with some tremendous power scoring to establish a crucial five-leg cushion.
- In total, Smith notched 13 180s during the contest to increase his tournament tally to 27. As impressive as his scoring has been though, the fact he has a tournament checkout percentage of 50% is very significant indeed.
THE PREDICTION
This will hopefully be a semi-final to savour between two players who are capable of making world class darts look so easy when they are in full flow. Smith has performed better than Anderson in pretty much all aspects of the game across the week so far and he comes into this match with superior stats in terms of average, checkout percentage and 180s. This does not mean that the trend will continue in this game, especially as Anderson did show a big improvement in his performance against Whitlock, but Smith looks confident and composed enough to deal with anything that is thrown at him and he can rise to the challenge. Each of their last four meetings have gone Smith’s way and there are enough reasons to believe that he is good value to come out on top again on this occasion.
