World Matchplay Darts: Quarter Finals 23/7/10

With the tournament now entering the final stages the quarter finals had to be split into two session; two games in the afternoon, two in the evening. This meant one thing was for sure; no blankets or coffee was going to be needed! With the fantastic four all looking to be guaranteed a place into the weekend's semi-finals all that was needed was to watch them do it in style. Up first was James Wade up against Wayne Jones, the lowest ranked quarter finalist. All the makings of an easy victory were there when Wade surged into a 5-1 lead which everyone would've thought to have been an unassailable lead. But Jones fought back and made the left-hander sweat a little bit as the match became levelled at 5-5. In agreement with the Sky Sports commentators, if the match had been a shorter Jones could have made quite the upset but due to the format being first to 16 legs there was no way Jones could match the World Number 3 in terms of stamina. Therefore it was no surprise to see Wade take another big lead of 13-9 and this time it was unassailable as Wade was able to close out the match 16-12 and became the first semi-finalist of the World Matchplay 2010.

Simon Whitlock was the next of the fantastic four to try and book his place into the semis, he arguably had the hardest quarter final tie up against the dark horse Jelle Klaasen. Klaasen held his nerve up until finding himself 6-5 behind where then he suddenly lost his way and the Aussie fired in a relentless attack to win 16-8 to follow Wade into the semis.

With the afternoon matches played the Blackpool crowd awaited the night's matches and the first one was Taylor against Painter. A match that seems to keep repeating itself over the darting circuit and one that Painter wasn't massively pleased with. With Taylor still not looking at his best it could've been Painter's best chance to win but Taylor crushed Painter with considerable ease with his superior finishing to win 16-4, the biggest deficit of the quarter finals.

The final quarter final match saw the all Dutch tie of Van Barneveld against Stompe, with Barney looking back to his best and a real shout for the tournament surely there could be only one result to confirm all of the fantastic four into the semi-finals. However Stompe held his own for most of the match and even out finished Van Barneveld in terms of three digit checkouts. Barneveld did manage to find some breathing space at 12-10 although Stompe had a chance of levelling at 11-11 but missed the bullseye. From there Barneveld wasn't going to be caught and he won 16-12 to book his semi-final place against James Wade.