Luke Humphries battles past Dimitri Van den Bergh to reach Blackpool semis

Top seed Luke Humphries battled past Dimitri Van den Bergh to book his place in the semi-finals of the World Matchplay at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool.

It was a fast start from the world champion, who broke Van den Bergh in the opening leg and then again to lead 3-0 on the back of four maximums.

Van den Bergh – who beat Humphries in the final of the UK Open in March – then got on the board against the darts before pulling another leg back going into the first interval just 3-2 behind.

The Belgian – World Matchplay champion behind closed doors in Milton Keynes in 2020 – then levelled the match after the restart as Humphries failed to take out 46, which Van den Bergh then finished on to move ahead for the first time at 4-3.

Humphries stopped the rot to hold on his next throw, and then there remained little between the pair as the world champion took an 8-7 lead into the mid-session break.

A checkout of 115 followed by taking another leg off Van den Bergh’s darts saw Humphries edge 11-8 in front, only for the Belgian to pull one back again before the next interval.

“After the first five legs I felt deflated and tired, which can happen in random games – I just did not feel the real Luke Humphries up there tonight,” Humphries said on Sky Sports.

“But I said to myself ‘just stick in there, work hard and don’t leg your mind play games with you’.

“I worked incredibly hard in that last session to get over the line, and it was a great performance in the last few legs.”

In Thursday evening’s opening match, former champion James Wade produced a vintage display to beat Ross Smith 16-10.

Smith landed some early big checkouts to open up a 4-2 lead, but left-hander Wade – who ended Nathan Aspinall’s hopes of a successful title defence on Tuesday – responded with plenty of heavy scoring to break and level the match after a 120 finish.

‘The Machine’ – who won the title in 2007, but only just secured his place in this year’s 32-player field – then dug in as he went on to forge ahead at 9-5.

Wade, though, immediately broke back when he took out double top only for Smith to land a superb 161 finish on the bullseye and keep himself still in the contest at 13-10.

It was, however, only delaying the inevitable as Wade – landing 13 maximums overall with a match average of 100.30 – went on to close out victory and book a ninth appearance in the World Matchplay semi-finals, his first since 2015.