Price and Clayton to meet in all-Welsh World Grand Prix quarter-final in Leicester

Former champions Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton will meet in an all-Welsh World Grand Prix quarter-final in Leicester on Friday. Price reached the last eight with a straight-sets win over Ross Smith, while Clayton progressed 3-1 against Wessel Nijman.

Price, who won the World Grand Prix in 2020, gained revenge over England's Ross Smith — who beat the former world champion in the World Series final earlier in September — and is yet to drop a set in this year's event. Clayton, the 2021 champion, averaged 93 and landed eight 180s in his second-round win and will become the new Welsh number one if he lifts his second World Grand Prix crown on Sunday.

After defeating Smith, Price said: "It wasn't a brilliant game, but a win's a win and I'm still in the tournament." On Friday's last-eight meeting with Clayton he added: "I remember years ago, Jonny in the final of this tournament absolutely smashed me. "He played pretty decent today, I think he got lucky first round. Hopefully he doesn't get lucky in the next round."

Clayton said: "It felt good up there." He also commented on his relationship with Price: "There's banter between me and Gezzy (Price)" and added: "Every time Gezzy gets back to [Welsh] number one, he sends me a flag with a number one on. "We have good banter... [we're] good friends, world number four and five, you can't fault that from Wales."

Nathan Aspinall and Ryan Joyce also secured quarter-final places and will play on Friday for places in the semi-finals, each recording straight-set second-round victories against Luke Woodhouse and Danny Noppert respectively. The second-round results included (8) Danny Noppert 0-3 Ryan Joyce (5) and Luke Woodhouse 0-3 Nathan Aspinall (16).

Defending champion Luke Littler was knocked out by Woodhouse on Monday. The remaining four best-of-five second-round matches are scheduled for Thursday evening, listed as: Thursday, 1 October (19:00 BST) Niels Zonneveld v Gary Anderson (10); (6) James Wade v Stephen Bunting (11); (2) Luke Humphries v Jermaine Wattimena (3); Gian van Veen v Ryan Searle (14).

Friday's session is shown as Friday, 2 October (19:00 BST) with the order of play to be confirmed and the two last-eight matches noted as (16) Nathan Aspinall v Ryan Joyce (4) and (Gerwyn) Price v (Jonny) Clayton (5). Saturday is listed as 3 October (20:00 BST) and Sunday as 4 October (20:00 BST).

The World Grand Prix quarter-finals in Leicester will therefore feature Price v Clayton and Aspinall v Joyce on Friday evening, with the order of play to be confirmed ahead of the 19:00 BST session.