{"id":10137,"date":"2026-03-05T06:57:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=10137"},"modified":"2026-03-05T06:57:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:57:04","slug":"former-world-cup-champions-clayton-and-price-take-centre-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/former-world-cup-champions-clayton-and-price-take-centre-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Former World Cup champions Clayton and Price take centre stage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Wales&#8217; former World Cup champions Jonny Clayton and Gerwyn Price will take centre stage on Night Five of the Premier League, as the darting roadshow rolls into Cardiff tonight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Utilita Arena will play host to a blockbuster night of action on March 5, as Clayton and Price bid to deliver the goods in the Welsh capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clayton, champion in 2021, has enjoyed a dream return to the Premier League fold, and he arrives on home soil with a two-point buffer at the top of the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 51-year-old is yet to taste defeat in the quarter-finals so far this season, having also recorded back-to-back victories over world number one Luke Littler in Glasgow and Belfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clayton has won both meetings by an aggregate scoreline of 12-4, although he faces another tough test against Gian van Veen, as the league&#8217;s top two go head-to-head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Veen has been incredibly consistent throughout the early stages of the campaign, featuring in a hat-trick of nightly finals across the opening four weeks of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the prospect of playing in front of a partisan home crowd is an occasion Clayton is determined to savour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve waited three years to do this! I&#8217;m really excited!&#8221;\u00a0insisted the world number five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Welsh crowd are second to none. You can ask Gezzy the same question, there&#8217;s no better place, it is fantastic. The atmosphere tomorrow night is going to be special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I want to play against Gezzy in that final! It would be a great night if we could have the two Welsh boys in the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;ll be a dream if I could hit a nine-darter in front of my home crowd like Josh [Rock] did last week. That was fantastic, and hopefully I can do the same tomorrow night!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Price &#8211; who celebrated victory on Night Two in Antwerp &#8211; will also headline Thursday&#8217;s proceedings, when he kicks off his challenge against a resurgent Stephen Bunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following three straight quarter-final defeats, Bunting ignited his Play-Off push with a trio of superb displays on Night Four, dispatching Luke Humphries, Clayton and Van Veen to triumph in Belfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That catapulted the Liverpudlian up to fifth in the league table, and victory over home hero Price would see him draw level on points with the 2020\/21 World Champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I learnt a lot from last year,&#8221;\u00a0admitted Bunting, who lost his opening eight matches in last year&#8217;s Premier League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It took me a long while to get that first win, and I&#8217;m happy I&#8217;ve got that monkey off my back now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I still believe I&#8217;m one of the best players in the world and deserve to be in this Premier League; that win in Belfast goes a long way to say why I should be here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This has to rank up there with one of the best wins of my career. I was a bit emotional early on after my first game, but I held it together.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The evening&#8217;s opening clash will pit seven-time winner Michael van Gerwen against reigning champion Humphries, who is currently three points adrift of the top four positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Humphries boasts a tournament average of 103.25 across his six matches, while Van Gerwen is sat in third spot, despite averaging almost seven points less than the world number two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thursday&#8217;s other quarter-final will see seventh take on eighth in the league table, as World Champion Littler faces Rock \u2013 fresh from his nine-dart exploits in Belfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Littler also landed a nine-darter on his previous visit to Cardiff in 2025, producing perfection against Van Gerwen en route to claiming the nightly crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 19-year-old will be hoping for a repeat performance in the Welsh capital, with Rock still searching for his first points of the season following a run of four consecutive 6-2 defeats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ranking points will be awarded per night &#8211; with five to the winner, three to the runner-up and two to the semi-finalists &#8211; to form the league table from which the top four players will progress to Finals Night at The O2 in London on Thursday May 28.<strong><br><br>SCHEDULE<br>Quarter-Finals<br><\/strong>Michael van Gerwen v Luke Humphries; Gian van Veen v Jonny Clayton; Gerwyn Price v Stephen Bunting; Luke Littler v Josh Rock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wales&#8217; former World Cup champions Jonny Clayton and Gerwyn Price will take centre stage on Night Five of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-10137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-darts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4.jpg",2000,1383,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4-300x207.jpg",300,207,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4-768x531.jpg",640,443,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4-1024x708.jpg",640,443,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4-1536x1062.jpg",1536,1062,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4.jpg",2000,1383,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/international\/\" rel=\"category tag\">International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026WorldMastersR2_Clayton4.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10139,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10137\/revisions\/10139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}