Wayne Mardle praises 'relentless' Peter Wright at the World Matchplay
Mardle: "If he plays like that again, then he's going to be very very difficult to beat, whether you're Gary Anderson or not, but that was some performance."
Thursday 26 July 2018 16:38, UK
Peter Wright produced the performance of the World Matchplay so far to dispatch Kim Huybrechts and book his place in the quarter-finals, and Wayne Mardle was full of praise for last year's beaten finalist.
'Snakebite' posted a terrific 105.60 average- the highest of the tournament so far, in his 11-5 victory over 'The Hurricane' on Wednesday night at the Winter Gardens.
The world No 2 was in bullish mood heading into his clash against the Belgian but he duly delivered, firing in 20 140s, converting 50 per cent of his attempts at double while reeling in three ton-plus checkouts.
The 2017 UK Open champion will now take on seventh seed Simon Whitlock in the last eight as he bids to reach his second consecutive World Matchplay final, and Mardle admits Wright has gone under the radar in Blackpool this year.
"Hardly anyone has mentioned that he's got a chance of winning or hardly anyone's even tipped him or fancied him to do well," said Mardle.
"He hadn't been playing great, he didn't play great in his first round, so to up it by 15 points effectively; from Jelle Klaasen to Kim Huybrechts - it's hard to predict that.
"When you hit 20 140s in a match, you're going to give yourself chances, with 50 per cent on the doubling. He was relentless and Kim played really well," he added.
Huybrechts started brightly and was averaging 105 after nine legs, where he trailed just 5-4. However, Wright won six of the final seven legs, with the Scot's unrelenting scoring blowing away 'The Hurricane'.
"Peter said he could hit more 180s, but I don't think that's really going to matter if you can hit that many 140's in that kind of length of contest," Mardle added.
"In the end that pressure leg on leg - we keep going on about the relentlessness of this format and it kind of got to Kim, and then Kim started to try throwing them harder and started to push.
"If he [Wright] plays like that again, then he's going to be very very difficult to beat, whether you're Gary Anderson or not, but that was some performance."
Wright is now second favourite for the tournament and is highly fancied to progress from the bottom half of the draw, following the surprise exit of world champion Rob Cross at the hands of Darren Webster.
Nevertheless, Mardle still believes there are question marks over Wright's ability to produce that kind of performance consistently.
"If Peter Wright can go from a 90 average to 105, he can obviously go the other way as well. I just think that Gary Anderson is the most consistent player that we've seen. Gary Anderson has got the gears," said Mardle.
"We know that Peter Wright has got the game, but he's going on about using 30 sets of darts. He said 'these are the ones'. These are the ones for now.
"I absolutely love Peter Wright's game, I love his action but you can't keep changing, because you always think it's something wrong with the darts and not you.
Simon Whitlock's 11-7 win over James Wade in Wednesday night's opener guarantees that there will be a new name on the World Matchplay trophy this year, and Mardle insists the tournament is wide open.
"I actually believe now that we're entering a realm of darts where for patches they can all be as good as each other, but it's how long that patch is. "
"All eight left in it know that they've got a chance," said Hawaii-501. "Mensur Suljovic was the relentless beast tonight against Ian White, there's Simon Whitlock.
"There's nobody that won't fancy it. Joe Cullen played a 110 average for the last nine legs. Darren Webster. You name the player and you can actually say yeah - for that length of time they can win it.
"I actually believe now that we're entering a realm of darts where for patches they can all be as good as each other, but it's how long that patch is.
"Gary Anderson has shown and proven that he can do it for longer than the others still in the event and that's more or less fact - he's won two world titles."
Join us for further coverage of the World Matchplay on Thursday, July 26 at 7pm on Sky Sports Action and Sky Sports Main Event. The darts will run through to the final on Sunday, July 29.
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