Luke Humphries beats Zonneveld 3-0 to reach semi-finals

Luke Humphries eased into the World Grand Prix semi-finals with a 3-0 win over Niels Zonneveld.

The scoreline was never seriously in doubt once the opening set had gone his way.

The Luke Humphries Zonneveld meeting leaves the world number two facing James Wade for a place in the final, a meeting previewed in our semi-final update.

It continued a tournament in which Humphries has not dropped a single set.

He followed earlier whitewashes of Jermaine Wattimena and, before that, Dave Chisnall.

His tournament opened with the the Chisnall win, and the same control has followed him through every round since.

Against Zonneveld he again showed that control, landing four maximums and converting enough of his doubles to make the contest feel one-sided from an early stage.

Both earlier wins were also completed 3-0, meaning Humphries arrives at the semi-finals having won nine sets out of nine without reply. It is the kind of record that tends to count for something once the draw thins out and the opposition gets tougher.

Humphries seizes the initiative

The contest settled into a pattern early. Humphries took the first set comfortably and followed it with a second that went the same way, leaving Zonneveld two sets down inside the opening half hour of play.

There was no need for him to change anything.

He stuck with the gameplan that has carried him through every match so far at this event, scoring heavily and taking the doubles that were on offer.

By the end of the second set he had already done the hard part of the job, and the contest had the look of a formality.

Seeding meant Humphries was always likely to be among the players left standing this deep into the draw.

He did nothing to upset that expectation. A defeat at this stage would have ended any hope of a fourth straight World Grand Prix final, so there was real incentive to get the job done without fuss.

Consistency like that, across three rounds without the loss of a set, says as much about his current state as any single number could.

Zonneveld simply had no foothold to work with once the gap opened up, and the gap only grew as the match wore on.

World Number Two Secures Last Four Spot

Humphries closed out the third set without alarm to complete the 3-0 win and confirm his place in the last four.

He will meet Wade, who beat Gian van Veen 3-0 in the other quarter-final to keep the straight-sets theme of the day running.

Nathan Aspinall also went through in style, beating Ryan Joyce 3-0 to reach his own semi-final. That result meant three of the four quarter-finals finished without a set dropped by the winner. The real drama of the day belonged elsewhere.

Gerwyn Price trailed Jonny Clayton by two sets before fighting back to win 3-2. Clayton missed match darts along the way, and that miss proved decisive.

Few moments test a player like standing over a dart to win and missing it, and it opened the door for Price to complete the turnaround.

Full detail on the rest of the bracket is in our World Grand Prix guide.

The last four is now set: Humphries against Wade, and Aspinall against Price. Three of the four got there in straight sets, and only Price had to come from behind.

Humphries was honest about his own level once the dust had settled, aware that Wade will ask different questions than Zonneveld did.

Speaking in comments carried by the BBC report, he said: “The way I’m practising, I feel really good, it’s just not been coming out this week. Against James, I know I need it to come out, it’ll be a tough task.”

Honesty of that kind is rare after a straight-sets win.

It says something about the standards Humphries holds himself to that a 3-0 victory still left him picking apart his own game, and it is a reminder that even the best players feel their form drift between practice and the stage.

A win over Wade would move Humphries into a fourth straight World Grand Prix final, a sequence that began when he first lifted the title in 2023.

That triumph is covered in his world title record, and it remains his only World Grand Prix title so far. That is part of why he rates the prospect of a fourth straight final so highly.

“To make four World Grand Prix finals on the trot would be super special,” he added.

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