Wright: I Might Need to Eat More Pies!

Peter Wright admits that eating a “few pies” could be the key to winning his first BetVictor World Matchplay title. Snakebite dumped Jelle Klaasen 10-5 in his opening first round clash at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. Now he faces Kim Huybrechts on Wednesday night but has revealed that his sudden weight loss due to a gallstones illness late last year has led to his inconsistency in 2018. He admits: “I’ve been rubbish all this year, a few 110 averages and few 80-odd averages, it’s been terrible at times. “But these darts can do 110 again, just watch out. I was a little bit nervy at times. I wasn’t pushed, if I had been I would have scored more. “It’s not a bonus Michael van Gerwen being out. I wanted to play him and beat him in the final and make him cry, but I can’t now. Now in this tournament any player can beat each other. “The illness and losing weight has caused my inconsistency this year. I watched back the final from the Matchplay last year and I can’t believe how big I was. I was a great big pineapple on that stage. “I lost that stone and a half and it’s changed things with my balance on the oche. It’s still not quite right, I’m moving too much on the oche but now I don’t want to put the weight back on. “I might need to eat a few more pies to win the Matchplay!” Snakebite breezed past Klaasen despite not hitting anywhere near the heights of his best form with just an 89 average. But once again the Livingston-born ace has been swapping his darts in preparation for a major tournament - and has no doubts he’ll beat Belgian Huybrechts. He added: “I was happy with my finishing, the odd scores when he Jelle hit a good score and put me under pressure and I responded. “My 89 average was rubbish to be fair. The more I’m pushed the better I’ll play, I think so anyway. I set up a 170 finish with a rubbish score of 39. So I thought I might as well go for it! “I was just focused, I didn’t look at the scores so I didn’t know I didn’t need to go for it. I just presumed he was on a finish because he is a good player. “I’ve got the game to beat Kim. He’s got to step up but I’ll win. “I was expecting to beat him 10-0 to be honest but I played with at least 30 different sets of darts and it was only two days ago that I actually picked the set I was going to use - and I felt really good with them. “To be honest these darts feel amazing and wait until they start working. I know I need to just play steady darts because everyone is playing rubbish in this tournament. “I played rubbish all the way through the tournament last year and got to the final and I got beat by the best player in the world and that’s only because I got emotional.” By Phil Lanning (@lannomedia)