Coverage of both World Darts Championship semi-finals gets underway on Sky Sports Darts from 7pm on Monday night
Monday 30 December 2019 21:35, UK
It's been a World Championship of thrills and spills - Fallon Sherrock's historic run, Raymond van Barneveld's early exit, several high-profile shocks. Can anyone stop Michael van Gerwen? Will Gerwyn Price deliver on the biggest stage of all?
Amidst all the chaos, one man has quietly been going about his business. That is - until Sunday afternoon.
In his quarter-final win over Luke Humphries in which he averaged 106, Peter Wright sent out a loud, clear message to the rest of the field. Perhaps inadvertently so...
"It's not my fault anyone didn't notice me," he laughed in the aftermath of sealing his semi-final berth, a date with his Grand Slam of Darts final conqueror Gerwyn Price awaits.
"I don't care. I'd rather them talk about everyone else. I'll just plod along, and I don't mind that.
"They've all been saying 'yeah Glen, yeah Gezzy, yeah Michael, yeah Gary'. I know the way I'm playing, I'll just sneak my way through. And I'm here."
It's not my fault anyone didn't notice me.
It's been a challenging few years for Snakebite at Alexandra Palace, suffering shock early exits at the hands of Jamie Lewis and Toni Alcinas in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
"The last couple of years, I've had excuses," he lamented. "And last year was a bad excuse - I didn't take Alcinas as a threat. But he kicked me off the stage, beat me and I won't do that again."
The stars seem to be aligning for the 49-year-old this year. He's peaking at just the right time, returning to the form that saw him sweep all before him for a period in July.
The question is - when he's playing like this, can anyone live with him on the oche?
"No. Not at all," he answered confidently.
"That's to come. I've got the semis and the final to go, and the longer the format goes, I'm going to be favourite."
After what seems like a perpetual search for a complete comfort and confidence in his choice of darts, Wright may have finally struck gold.
"When I got the darts, I texted Lee who makes my darts from Red Dragon, and said 'thank you for making me a set of darts that will win me the World Championships'," he smiled.
Nonetheless, he sounded a warning that the best is yet to come.
"I could do a lot more than that," he said after his victory over Humphries.
"I've got to save it. I don't want to show too much!
"I just want to break the records. I want to break the 180 records in this tournament. I want to break the highest average in this tournament, and obviously go and win it. They're my targets. I'll do that."
Coverage of the World Darts Championship continues on Sky Sports Darts throughout the tournament with Sunday's evening session kicking off at 7pm. Check out daily Darts news on skysports.com/darts, our app for mobile devices and our Twitter account @skysportsdarts.
