Worlds post 7/8 - the van Gerwen bit

Feels like it's been somewhat of a disappointing season for MvG, with the two Luke's sweeping up pretty much everything, but was it? Working from the floor up, van Gerwen played a very truncated season, playing less than half the events and having a very surprising record of more first round defeats than wins, mostly to opponents he has no business losing to, only having a single run to the quarter finals which saw him miss out on the Players Championship Finals for the first time since its inception. The European Tour did see him pick up a win in Munich, running over Huybrechts, Searle, Joyce, Rock and then van Veen in the final, but again only played half the events, not doing too much else outside of that win with just a semi final to add to that tournament win. That would get him into Dortmund, where (apart from the worlds final last year) he had his best major run of 2025, reaching the semi finals with wins against Nijman, Dobey and Gurney, before falling to van Veen by the odd break. Other majors were generally well below par - losing in the last sixteen in the Masters to Dimitri having been a leg away from the match, he got through a real tough first game draw at the UK Open against Dirk only to be stunned by Robert Owen, while at Blackpool he got through RvB as you would expect, but would lose a lead against Josh Rock in the second round and eventually lose in overtime. Dirk would then avenge that UK Open loss in the first round of the Grand Prix, while at the Slam, he won his group despite a loss to Niko Springer, but would go down 10-6 in the first knockout stage to Danny Noppert. Unranked events did help him somewhat, he won the World Series finals with what should be in contention for best tournament performance, beating both Lukes (including Littler in the final), along with the deadly young pair of players Rock and Nijman as well as former world champion Rob Cross, but he'd do basically nothing in the circuit events, skip the World Cup, and miss the playoffs in the Premier League for only the second time ever. He's clearly still a top player, but his level is not what it was and there's so many more players who are at the level he is at now than there were before.

Tatsunami is a relatively unknown player from Japan, who I don't have a great deal on in my database, so this write up could be interesting. He's qualified through winning the Steel Darts Japan event, something I believe is a relatively new series (but happy to be fact checked on that), where in an eclectic field of new and old names, he won a pair of events in September, where he managed a good average in the high 90's in the opening round, hit a twelve in a deciding leg in the quarters, come from a set behind in the semi final prior to being the beneficiary of missed darts to break and throw for the match from his opponent in the final. Fair to say that he did avoid a lot of the bigger names in the event, Keita Ono was in the semis, Seigo Asada made the quarters, while Tomoya Goto probably should have beaten the other eventual finalist but didn't. Still, you can only beat what's in front of you. Tatsunami did play some of the Asian Tour, winning event six on home soil against Asada in the final, and made a further semi final an two quarters. This got him into the Asian Championship, but in a group where A beat B beat C beat A, he had the worst leg difference and didn't qualify for the knockout stages. He's been around for a little bit, winning on the Asian Tour in 2023 and winning some fairly big unranked WDF event last season, but this looks like a first round match we won't need to deliberate over that much.

Willie is just outside the top 40 that got straight iinvites and finished up second on the Pro Tour rankings behind only European Tour winner Niko Springer to bring his record of consecutive appearances here up to nine. O'Connor had a steady season with a fair few highlights, the best work arguably being done on the Pro Tour, where he opened with a pair of quarter final runs in the early part of the season, going a little bit quieter in the mid season but without getting horrible results, then hitting form at the last time, with the last ten events starting with a pair of semi final finishes, only being beaten by Gerwyn Price and Stephen Bunting, both in deciding legs, and the last two events would be even stronger, reaching the final in the penultimate event where he was 6-5 up against Chris Dobey but lost the last three legs, then ended with a third semi, being stopped on that occasion by Luke Woodhouse. That good form throughout the season would see him finish in the top quarter of seeds for Minehead, but he would be possibly surprisingly beaten by Ricardo Pietreczko in the opening round. He got into quite a lot of the European Tour events, playing in nine with a best run being to the quarter finals in the Netherlands, getting in as an alternate for a seed, beating Boris Krcmar and Ritchie Edhouse prior to running into Luke Humphries, but despite that good record of qualification he'd finish just a few spots outside of the qualification line for what would have been a first European Championship in five years. He made the main Masters field and knocked out Rob Cross before losing in straight sets (but all deciding legs, oddly enough) to Danny Noppert, and the UK Open remained somewhat of a happy hunting ground, where he beat Tom Sykes, Scott Williams and Mensur Suljovic to get to the last sixteen, only losing by the odd braek to Nathan Aspinall. A strong player who seems to be hitting form at the right time, he's got the experience and quality to maybe cause some surprises here.

Krzysztof Kciuk is the veteran (although surprisingly younger than Ratajski) Polish player and former tour card holder who'll make a third appearance here sixteen years after making a debut where he lost to Haruki Muramatsu in a prelim, and two years after his last appearance when he lost in straight sets to Connor Scutt. Kciuk makes it here having won through a large field in the Polish qualifier, needing to come through eight rounds to book his return, notably beating Tytus Kanik along the way and needing to navigate a last leg decider at the quarter final stage. It's been a quiet year otherwise, he did try getting onto the European Tour in all but two of the qualifiers, and was one off a spot in the main event twice, losing to Petr Krivka and Dalibor Smolik, unfortunately having been a break up in both events. He did play the Challenge Tour weekend which was in Germany, being eligible having played Q-School where he got to the second stage, put himself in an OK position with a day 1 quarter final run up to Karel Sedlacek, but would follow that up with three first round losses. In that Challenge Tour weekend, Kciuk did OK, getting to the last sixteen a couple of times, picking up wins over the likes of Stefan Bellmont, Michael Unterbuchner and Jarno Bottenberg, but couldn't go deep enough to do anything like threatening any Pro Tour call ups. He did play some WDF, getting alright runs in Budapest and getting through the groups of their World Masters in a run to the last 32. He's not bad, but I doubt he scores heavily enough or has been playing a high enough standard of opponent to really cause O'Connor too may problems.

Peter Wright seems to have been at the stage where he's been threatening to drop down the rankings like a stone, only to pull off some result to keep things ticking over, pretty much since his last world title. 2023 it was that European Championship that's just dropped off the rankings hence the #30 seeding. Last year it was a Euro Tour. This year it's, er, well after that quarter final run twelve months ago, it's not been much of anything. TV has not been good - he beat Kevin Doets from a set down at the Masters only to lose to Stephen Bunting. At the UK Open he lost to Luke Littler first game - tough draw and he made it 10-9 to be fair. At Blackpool he was down early against Wattimena, he did pull back a break but still lost 10-8, then at Leicester he went out to defending champion Mike de Decker. He lost to Ross Smith at Dortmund, did not qualify for the Grand Slam for the first time in over a decade, and while he did nick a win against Joe Cullen in the Players Championship Finals, it would be one and done as he lost to James Wade. Are there any signs at lower levels that he can halt what could be a further decline in 2026? Well he did make four Euro Tour quarter finals, but bear in mind he was seeded for all of them and he won't get that luxury going forward - heck, he may not even get the Pro Tour invites if he's not careful. Quite a few opening round losses, although most were to players who are better or likely not much worse at this point, only one of them is what I'd describe as bad. On the floor Wright did get to one final, but that was back in April and he couldn't get close to Cameron Menzies, and his only other run to a quarter final was even earlier. Since then he's missed a few events (which I'm not sure he can afford to), had an opening losing record, and only pulled out a singular board win in nearly 20 attempts, and even in that one he only played one good opponent, needing every leg against Ross Smith and going out to Thibault Tricole. His scoring is still above 90, and he is not defending much of anything here (two years ago being the one where he lost in straight sets to Jim Williams), but with him being outside the Matchplay race spots right now, and with him nearer 60 than 50 already, I do kind of half wonder if the thought isn't in his head to go out on the stage where he had his biggest successes. Would be sad to see but I do think there's a non-zero possibility of it.

Noa is back for a second year, after making a losing debut twelve months ago to Kevin Doets. van Leuven is here after finishing fourth in the Women's Series, picking up a pair of titles in Rosmalen along with a further final in the last event of the season in Wigan. Noa was like everyone else a mile behind Beau Greaves, and also finished behind Sherrock and Ashton, but Beau and Lisa qualifying through other methods saw the qualifying spots slide down far enough to allow a return to the big stage. A former Challenge Tour winner, I've got nothing in the database except that match against Doets. van Leuven did play Q-School, entering at stage 1 but not being able to progress past the last 64 stage on any day with the only notable win being against fellow last time debutant Romeo Grbavac. That did allow van Leuven to play the Challenge Tour, but this was limited to the one continental weekend, and resulted in just one run to the top 64 and a 3-5 overall match record, putting in one very good showing against Andy Hamilton but otherwise averaging in the seventies half the time, indeed the Women's Series average, which while second behind only Beau, was only 81, and while the usual quality of opponent influences averages caveat applies, on that series there were too many matches that saw drops into the seventies, or even worse. If you're not even averaging an eighteen dart leg over a large sample, then how much chance you'd have of winning a game on this stage is very questionable.

Kim Huybrechts remains safely in the tour card positions, but is still clearly some way off his best ranking, and after a brief flirtation of getting back towards the top 32 two or three years ago, there's a distinct lack of indicators to say that he's capable of getting back towards there, and while he qualified for here perfectly safely through the Pro Tour rankings, there weren't any obvious standout results like that miracle European Tour final we had to finish 2024. On the floor, Kim did not make a single quarter final, a run which extends all the way back to when he last won on the floor early in 2023, and that seems like something that most players would do by accident at some point, especially over a two year period. Indeed, Huybrechts only won his board once all season, and that was right back in the second event of the year, a little bit against the run of play given a 3-9 round one start to the year. Kim wouldn't recover to an even record on that front, but would have a decent enough record in terms of getting to board finals, even if he was not winning them. This record saw him miss the Players Championship finals by six grand making for a first miss since he's held a tour card. He at least did a lot better in qualifying in Europe than last year, playing in six of the fourteen events, getting into the first as an alternate, beating a local qualifier then only just losing to MvG, losing narrowly to Ritchie Edhouse and Cameron Menzies, before getting another alternate call up, beating Ian White then being whitewashed by Ross Smith. He'd use the host nation qualifier to make Antwerp and just beat Lukas Wenig prior to a loss to James Wade, and finish in Hungary with a best run to round three, where as an alternate yet again he'd beat Andreas Harrysson and then potential opponent here Peter Wright to make the final day, losing to Wade again. He did little on TV, beating Tom Bissell in the Masters before losing to Gabriel Clemens, and he'd run into Wenig again at the UK Open, outlasting him in that one before picking up just a couple of legs in a one sided defeat against Damon Heta. The numbers are not dreadful, but they are down and he in no way has a false ranking at this point in time.

Arno Merk is going to make his debut on this stage after winning through the German area qualifier. This has seen a few good players make it in the past and the somewhat convoluted system now extends to several adjacent countries. Merk won that last couple of events in what is now called PDC Europe Next Gen in Hildesheim, which would be enough to get him into the Super League final stage. Getting somewhat of a favourable group, featuring Oliver Müller then four other players I've not heard of, Arno ended with a very good 9-1 record, averaging steadily in the 80's and breaking into the 90's once. This pushed him into the final stages, in which he started with a pair of 90 averages again, in the mid range against Kevin Troppmann and being marginally below a ton against Yorick Hofkens. A semi final win against Jarod Becker was comfortable, but Daniel Klose would be tougher in the final, Merk prevailing 8-6, but was hanging on a bit at the end having been 5-2 up. Arno did try to get on the European Tour a few times, but ended up no better than being two games away in any of them, so couldn't repeat a previous appearance last year where he was given the dubious honour of playing Luke Littler with inevitable results. Arno played the Challenge Tour a fair bit, and had a few cashes, a best run being a quarter final where he lost out to Dave Pallett, it wasn't much but it did get him into a pair of Pro Tours in Hildesheim, where he at least won his first game in both and got the scalp of Scott Williams. The limited numbers we have aren't good with a horrid lack of five visit finishes, and there's not enough evidence at lower levels outside my database that the game is there yet. He is still relatively young though and he did take a big break from the sport, and was highly touted as a youngster - this isn't actually his worlds debut, having played Lakeside way back in 2011!

I'm going to go with a controversial couple of shouts here. I don't think any of the unseeded players will get particularly close in round one, but I'm going with shocks in round two. Kim Huybrechts beating Peter Wright might not be a huge shock and he has beaten him on this stage when he was last the defending champion, and did win their matchup this year, but it might look like it. O'Connor over van Gerwen would be much more of a legitimate surprise, but it's one I think might happen. Willie's hugely experienced at this stage, is coming into form at the right time, the numbers are good, and it is not as if van Gerwen has been tearing things up in 2025. There's usually at least one real surprise, and I'm calling it here. And frankly, if he can beat Michael, he'd have no issues against Huybrechts. Winner - Willie O'Connor

It's been a moderately quiet year for Anderson on the stage, although the underlying statistics as well as successes on the lower circuits indicate that he is still very much a force to be reckoned with. On TV he's not managed a great deal, with opening game losses to Dimitri van den Bergh in the Masters and Jonny Clayton at the UK Open. He'd do a bit better at the Matchplay where he got off the mark with a win against Luke Woodhouse prior to pushing Stephen Bunting to overtime, while at the Grand Prix he'd have a best run of the season, edging past Barney before routing a below par Joe Cullen, prior to defeat to Danny Noppert. He'd lose an opening game in Dortmund to Cameron Menzies and not get out of a tough but not horrible group at the Grand Slam, while in the Players Championship Finals, Gary beat Mario Vandenbogaerde but would lose in the second round to Ricardo Pietreczko. As mentioned, lower tours were good - starting with an early semi final on the European Tour, before getting a win after a break of a few tourneys in Sindelfingen, notably beating van Veen and van Duijvenbode and not dropping a leg in the final to Andrew Gilding. He'd only play a couple more before reaching a second final, renewing his rivalry with Gerwyn Price who'd take that title, before deciding his work is done and skipping the remaining events. He missed a fair few Pro Tours as well, but would add another title there, with an 8-3 victory against surprise finalist Adam Lipscombe. The only other thing to mention would be a loss at the World Cup - drawing the Netherlands would not be ideal and he probably wasn't with the strongest partner he could get, but not losing a leg was a big surprise. There's still a lot of talent in there, but with lack of stage results and turning 55 during the course of the tournament, you might question, five years since his last major final, whether there's enough to make a huge impression in a lengthy, long format tournament such as this one.

Hunt will make a fourth appearance here, and his first for four years, being without a tour card for a couple of them and not making enough of an impact on the circuit when he has had a card to qualify directly either. However, he got through the PDPA qualifier for the second time in his career, getting comfortable wins over Max Czerwinski and Thomas Lovely with 90 averages, before getting what might have looked like a bit of finishing line syndrome in the final against Tytus Kanik, where a 5-1 lead became a decider at 6-6, but breaking in the decider to book a big stage return. The floor was not terrible, with more wins than losses in the first round, and he did pick up two of his best results in the last three events, with a board win in PC32 where he pushed Luke Littler fairly close to get to the quarters, and a final to add to it in the last event of the season. Prior to that however, he only made two board finals all season, another one quite late in PC29, and one in the first event of the season. So while he wasn't losing in the first round that much, he had an enormous streak of events where he'd either do that, or lose in the second round, although to be somewhat fair, on a scan of the match record he was generally going out to players who are clearly better than he is right now. He couldn't get much going on the European circuit either, going 1-2 in final qualifying rounds to make just the single event, this early in the season in Göttingen, where he lost to Martin Schindler (again, not the easiest draw) 6-2. He went out early in the Masters, but did have a bit of a cameo in the UK Open, winning against Maik Kuivenhoven before getting a bye after de Graaf withdrew late to get into the pot with the big guns. There he'd lose 10-7 to Ryan Searle, not the worst scoreline and the averages were basically the same. Adam had a lot of hype about him when he was still around the Development Tour ranks, but he's in his thirties now and is still yet to show enough to make anyone think he'll be able to stick on the main PDC circuit.

Connor Scutt had a very strong 2023 and 2024, making a couple of Pro Tour finals in that period, but 2025 has been a lot quieter and he only just sneaked into the field as the last Pro Tour qualifier. He shouldn't be anywhere near that marker, but form just collapsed mid season and it only just recovered partially for him to make a third appearance here in a row. Scutt, having ended last season with a major quarter final at Minehead, looked like he might have been able to push towards the top 32, but started with a really changeable Pro Tour effort, making three board finals with one win in the first ten events but not winning a match outside of that, and it would take him until the last six events of the season for him to make another board final, doing so on back to back days in Leicester but not actually being able to win either of them. That left him outside of the Players Championship Finals equation by over five grand, and making three European Tour events, two where he lost in the first round to Gian van Veen and Callan Rydz sandwiching a win against Ritchie Edhouse prior to a second round defeat to Luke Humphries, would be needed to secure the Ally Pally place. He still had something going at the start of the season, where he made the last 32 in the UK Open, beating Berry van Peer and notably Gerwyn Price in the fourth round 10-9, before putting in another good showing but being a bit short in a 10-7 loss to Damon Heta, and he showed signs of getting things back together by coming through the Grand Slam tour card holder qualifier in style, averaging nearly a ton in a deciding leg win over James Hurrell and a whitewash of Peter Wright, before averaging 104 and 103 in another 5-0 against Adam Hunt and then in the final round against Mike de Decker. Connor then continued that good play to get through the group stage - everyone lost to Littler there but Sedlacek and Gurney is not a trivial ask. That got him into the knockout stage where he was able to take Josh Rock all the way to a deciding leg. Those runs might be enough to convince me that whatever was going on mid season may well be behind him, and that the numbers listed might be a touch of an underestimate.

Simon Whitlock is perhaps a little bit of a surprise returning player, having not qualified last year and losing his tourcard, but the former finalist is back, making a seventeenth appearance here following his win in the ANZ Premier League. A new idea, Whitlock was simply invited which seems a tad unfair to everyone else who had to earn their way in, but whatever, and he wasn't able to win any of the seven nights, but did lose in three finals, giving him the points to make the finals night, where he defeated Jonny Tata 8-3 then Raymond Smith 10-7 to claim the title. We're then kind of limited beyond that - Whitlock didn't play any DPA events, and didn't play any ADA events either, but he did play the first Challenge Tour weekend, making a couple of quarter finals. He was an interesting pick for the World Cup alongside Damon Heta, winning through their group with ease and crushing Argentina before losing to Germany, he did play the seniors' worlds only to lose in the first round, and he was involved in the World Series, losing in the legs in his part of the world to Josh Rock and Chris Dobey, while at the finals event he'd draw Luke Littler, which he kept moderately close but ultimately couldn't get the win. The numbers we've seen have hit the 90's on quite a few occasions, but seem more in the 80's, which is kind of what we saw towards the end of his tour card run, so it doesn't look like he's regressed much, but from a spot where he lost his card, it's not encouraging given he's playing someone who does have one.

Jermaine Wattimena's continued his impressive resurgence in 2025, and is now well back within the seeds for this event, backing up a 2024 which saw him win his first major final with his first PDC title wins, something that's been long overdue. These came on the floor - first threatening in June where he got to a final only to lose to Stephen Bunting, he would finally get over the line a month later, defeating Lukas Wenig who was also looking for his first title in that tournament. One quickly became two, as Jermaine would take it all the way in October, beating Nathan Aspinall very comfortably in the final. The last few weekends saw a further semi final and two quarter finals, while he did start the season with two quarter finals in the first three events, showing solid form throughout the season. On the European Tour it was a little bit more mixed, getting to a couple of quarter finals later in the season, but only getting to the final day five times, with a few more first round exits than I'd have expected. While he couldn't back up last year's run to the European Championship final, TV wasn't too bad, with the highlight being the Players Championship finals, where he went all the way to the semi final - coming in as the sixth seed, he defeated Wesley Plaisier and Ryan Joyce fairly easily, come through tight encounters with Ryan Searle and James Wade, before being heavily routed by Nathan Aspinall. Earlier in the year he got through the qualifiers to make the main Masters field, where he'd be drawn against Josh Rock, and he made his best UK Open run in a while, getting to round five where drawing Littler would limit how far he could go. He returned to the Matchplay and Grand Prix for the first time in several years, beating Peter Wright in the former but that'd be the only win, getting Littler in round two where he had a decent midway lead only to lose in overtime, and Danny Noppert won a deciding leg at Leicester. He'd get to the second round in Dortmund, perhaps surprisingly losing to Ricardo Pietreczko, and in unranked events make a return to the World Series finals, where he'd lose a scrappy one to Kevin Doets, having turned over Humphries in the Dutch leg of the tour. Still very much on an upward trajectory with the title hoodoo gone, he could very much beat his best run here (which was to the third round last season).

Dominik Gruellich is a pretty young German player who was able to win a tour card for the first time in January, and has made very much an up and down start to a full senior career. Just about making it in through the Pro Tour rankings, more or less the entirety of his ranking money came from the Pro Tour, after hitting just the singular European Tour event all season, losing out to Luke Woodhouse in Göttingen. The floor was a slow start for sure, picking up just the one win in the first eleven events, then he hit a little bit of a purple patch with five straight board finals - one of which he won, but the other he took all the way to the final somehow, beating top 32 players in Dirk van Duijvenbode, Michael Smith and Daryl Gurney along the way, he would lose to a red hot Jonny Clayton in the final, but he was so near to being the next German player to win a title before Gabriel Clemens does. The next dozen or so events would be so-so, but he finished much as he started with a string of seven defeats to end the season. A win in any one of those events would have got him to Minehead, but as things turned out there was a four way tie for 63rd to 66th, so he was the only player not to make the field on countback. Harsh, but they've got to have some sort of tiebreaker. Still eligible to play the Development Tour, he had a pretty good season there, finishing in the top ten of the rankings having claimed two titles, one convincingly over fellow tour card holder Leon Weber, and the other just about against Beau Greaves. This'd get him into the world youth championship, where he was an early casualty against Lee Lok Yin, but he did get a couple of stage wins at the UK Open, beating former Pro Tour winner Danny Jansen and Andreas Harrysson before losing to Nick Kenny. It's been a season where he's needed to adapt and he'll have learned a lot, I don't think he has a great chance of doing anything here given the draw but it'll be an important part of his learning curve.

Scott Williams is still in the world's top 40, but looks very likely to drop from those spots once the semi final money from two years ago drops off after this tournament. What's he done in 2025? There's been some moments, particularly on the Pro Tour. A former winner at that level when he didn't have a tour card, the number of first round defeats were fairly limited so the prize money kept ticking over, and he had several deep runs, reaching four semi finals, and going one further on another occasion to reach a second career Pro Tour final, only to lose to James Wade in a game where he averaged well but just couldn't win too many legs. That mix of consistency and flashes of quality would get Scott to the Players Championship Finals comfortably in the top half of the seeds, where he'd beat Ian White as you might expect, and then lose to Josh Rock, as you also might expect. The European Tour was almost a total loss, making just the one event where he did at least beat Wessel Nijman, but Josh Rock would do him again in round two, so we're just looking at TV events for what else he's done at this stage. The World Masters was a bit disappointing, it wasn't the easiest qualifying section but he lost his first game to Ryan Meikle, while the UK Open ended up being one and done, he'd get the scalp of Wessel Nijman again here, but it'd be another case of play well and just fall short in round four, averaging in the high 90's but losing 10-7 to Willie O'Connor. The numbers typically look fine, the results have come in patches, so while it feels like he's had a quiet season and while his ranking is going to naturally fall somewhat, I don't think the year's been bad at all.

Paolo Nebrida will come back for a fourth straight appearance, twelve months after getting a first win at Ally Pally, where he manufactured a win against Jim Williams before shocking Ross Smith with a 3-0 win, prior to going out at the last 32 stage to Jeffrey de Graaf. Paolo maybe didn't have the best season this year as he did previously, only finishing seventh on the Asian Tour, but there are enough spots to go around for him to be back here. On that tour he picked up two titles, both deciding leg victories against Paul Lim and Tomoya Goto, but he'd only make one other final. Paolo got out of the Asian Championship groups but would lose in the last sixteen, and he also made a World Cup debut, knocking out Belgium in the group stages only to run into Wales in the first knockout round where they lost heavily against a strong opponent. He has played the occasional WDF event as well, getting a decent run going in the Korea Open, losing out in the quarter finals to Lourence Ilagan. We know he's going to be fairly solid, but he's up against a fairly solid opponent as well, so he' s got chances, but it'll be tough.

Who comes through here? Gary I think will be fine in round one. Scutt I think is back playing at a higher level than Whitlock is at right now so should get through. Jermaine is a lot better than Gruellich, whereas Scott against Paolo might be the closest one, but I'll take Williams. Can't see Scott giving Jermaine much trouble in the second round given the form Wattimena is in. Scutt against Anderson would be a different question. Gary is clearly the better player, but if we are back at or near peak Scutt, then this could end up being pretty close. I'll just about take Anderson to make it an all seeded third round, but I just think that Jermaine is in too good form and with too much confidence for Gary to come out of this section. Winner - Jermaine Wattimena

As a side note, I've noticed that my database is missing the Asian Tour weekend in Mongolia. I don't know if that wasn't on DC or if it's an oversight, but I'll investigate it now, and while it may mean that some of the numbers for anyone in the field that got to a quarter or better there might be inaccurate, it's before I throw up any projections, so at least nobody is going to have bet based on incomplete data.

Worlds post 6/8 - the Wade bit

Pretty darned good year all round for Wade, who's got himself back up into the top ten after some solid major performances which will have thrown him into Premier League conversations. James, like so many players, has hit a Littler shaped wall, and did so in the first three majors of the year. That said, if two of those were finals, you're probably not going to be that concerned. Wade had a moderately easy run to the final day of the UK Open, where he got a deciding leg win against Luke Humphries and demolished Josh Rock, but ran out of steam and was heavily routed by Littler. At the Matchplay, Wade took advantage of an early defeat for Humphries, cruising past Cullen and Nijman, before nicking a close one against van Veen and an even closer one against Clayton which went into added time - of course, he lost to Littler, but 18-13 with a 101 average is pretty respectable. He'd go out early at the Grand Prix and Slam, losing in the first round to Cullen and not being able to recover from a shock group defeat to Stefan Bellmont, but the other two events were quarter final runs, finally getting the better of Littler in Dortmund only to lose to Humphries in the next round (tough draw eh), while his Players Championship Finals path was relatively comfortable until he clashed against Jermaine Wattimena, who won by the odd break. His European Tour form was solid, reaching four semi finals including three in back to back events, losing them to Littler, Anderson, Rock and Humphries not leaving much on the table, and while he did skip a fair few Pro Tour events, he did win one of them, running out a convincing winner over Scott Williams in Leicester in June, and backed that up with five further trips to the quarter final stages. He's playing at a better level than he has done in several years with a style that makes him pretty hard to beat, more so in leg play than set play, but will still be a danger to do some damage here as he will look to end a run of three straight early defeats on the worlds stage.

Azemoto will make his return here twelve months after making his debut, which saw him take Wesley Plaisier to a deciding set in a scrappy match, just coming out of it on the wrong side. Ryusei ended up fourth in the Asian Tour rankings to seal his return, claiming three titles on that tour, the most notable one being in Kuala Lumpur where he managed a staggering 111 average in the final. Azemoto has been pretty hit and miss on that tour - his overall averages were barely in the top 20 (and even if we added a reasonable matched played requirement, they wouldn't be in the top ten), and while he did win some events and go deep in quite a few others, there were a fair few early defeats playing some bang average stuff. In the Asian Championship he got through the group stage and won his first knockout game but would lose to Paul Lim in the quarter finals, while he did get some TV experience through playing in the World Cup, where after beating the seeded Croatia team, they only needed to beat Switzerland to advance to the knockouts (or get to a deciding leg to force some sort of tiebreaker), they lost 4-1. Ryusei surprisingly didn't take part in the Steel Darts Japan tour, which might have given useful extra experience, but he has dabbled in some WDF events, winning the Selangor Open, although that's only a bronze ranked event. Maybe against some other opponents Azemoto would have a fighting chance, but this is a bad match up for someone who's probably going to need that sixth visit to win legs more often than not.

Ricky Evans will make an eleventh appearance here having just crept back into the world's top 40 following a moderately successful season. Ricky, best known for bangers of shirts and quick play more than actual results, made it two years in a row with a deep TV run, getting to the quarter finals of the Grand Slam. Qualifying through the tour card holder qualifier, Evans won deciding legs against Gerwyn Price and Stefan Bellmont to qualify for the knockouts with a match to spare (so the loss to possible second round opponent Wade was a dead rubber), then in the knockouts he just outlasted Luke Woodhouse to reach that quarter final. Price would win the rematch comfortably, but that result was a big bonus after after a fairly early loss at the Masters (beat Sedlacek, lost to Menzies) and similar at the UK Open (beat Clemens, lost to Chisnall). To get into anything else would need some form at lower levels, and it wasn't really there. Making three European Tour events, Ricky picked up a win against Barney in one event, then made the final day in Hildesheim, beating a tough pairing in Cullen and Rock prior to losing to Chisnall in the last sixteen. The Pro Tour saw just a single quarter final, but at least he didn't have the big losing streak he had towards the end of last year at any point, getting enough to make Minehead with a fair bit of room to spare, but drawing Danny Noppert and losing in the first round. Evans has a solid record here, but reaching the third round for a third straight year might be a tough ask.

Leung made a debut here two years ago, which saw him make a terrific comeback against Gian van Veen prior to a loss to Gabriel Clemens. He returns after a moderately successful Asian Tour campaign, finishing just outside the top five in the rankings but high enough to book a return here. On that Asian Tour, Leung picked up a pair of wins and three final defeats, the last final coming in the final event of the season but the other four coming somewhat earlier on. This got him into the Asian Championship, coming through the groups and winning the opening knockout game prior to a loss to Sakai in the quarter final stages. He was one half of the Hong Kong team at the World Cup which got the dream draw of the USA and Bahrain, winning both group games and then beating Sweden in the knockout stages tp get through to the quarter finals, where they would lose to Wales. There's not much else I can see that happened in 2025, he didn't get a pick for the Bahrain stop of the World Series and I can't see any WDF events either. Still pretty young (has some Dev Tour data in my database), he's got a pretty decent peak game, so could give Ricky some issues if he shows up.

Cammy's now full time on the darts, and will come into the tournament as a seeded player for the first time, looking to improve on last year's surprise early exit to Leonard Gates. The floor has been just fine - picking up a second title in April with a big win over Peter Wright, this coming just after a final defeat and a semi final run in the previous two events, and he'd already won through to another final earlier in the season in Rosmalen. After that however, Menzies didn't really threaten the scorers, he did pick up seven board wins, but couldn't take any of them further than the last sixteen stages. The European Tour was fine, although again he didn't look like actually improving to win at that higher level, getting to a pair of quarter finals and winning past the seed on four other occasions, he'd beat the likes of Heta, de Decker, Wade, Bunting, Cross and Ross Smith over the course of the season, but the quarters remains the limits of what he's done on that tour and both quarter final defeats saw Cameron put in mediocre performances. On TV, he got himself into the Masters main draw with a win over van Veen and would beat Chisnall to move to the second round where he lost heavily to Nathan Aspinall, and he reached a new best of round five in the UK Open after beating Dom Taylor and Mike de Decker, before losing a decider to James Wade. A Matchplay debut saw a real disappointing loss to Danny Noppert, but he rebounded with a quarter final run in Leicester, eliminating Dobey and Cross before running into Luke Humphries. The end of the season would be a bit of a slow down however, Dortmund was solid with a win over Anderson and nearly eliminating Humphries but losing a deciding leg, but he'd miss the Slam and lose his opening game at Minehead 6-1 to Adam Lipscombe. Absolutely a dangerous player who can match up well with anyone, but also a player who can go completely missing, make bizarre counting errors, and everything in between.

Charlie Manby's an incredibly exciting prospect, who makes his debut here having been around the Development Tour for some time, but exploding in form in 2025, who made a lot of headlines earlier in the season when he hit some absurd average (over four legs) on that tour. Charlie finished fourth in the rankings, only behind Greaves and two tour card holders, doing so by picking up a title in September, a further final earlier in the season, and multiple runs to the quarter and semi final stages. This got him to the world youth championship, where he got to the last sixteen and forced Luke Littler to a deciding eleventh leg with over a hundred average. Charlie didn't just play the Dev Tour however, he got into the top 30 of the Challenge Tour, peaking at a pair of semi finals, which would be just enough to get him into a handful of Pro Tour events, picking up the scalps of Rob Cross and Andrew Gilding. Manby was in that weird World Masters group that had just two players, losing to Ryan Meikle, and having also got into the UK Open through the previous year's Dev Tour, there he'd lose his opening game to Aden Kirk. He didn't quite get enough on the Development Tour this year to win a tour card, but is certainly capable of announcing his arrival on the senior circuit here and now, and will surely be one of the names to watch at Q-School early in the new year.

Campbell will make his seventh straight appearance here, having a best run of round three where he eliminated James Wade prior to hitting the debuting Littler two years ago. Getting here through the Pro Tour, Matt's not had the greatest of seasons, but there were sporadic highlights, the main one probably being the retention of his North American Championship, where as the top seed he defeated Jason Brandon and Stowe Buntz, before winning the final against fellow Canadian Jim Long. He couldn't use the worlds spot that had on offer due to PDC rules, but did enough on the Pro Tour to make another appearance and give himself a half chance of retaining his tour card for 2026. That's a touch surprising given what he actually did on the floor - he had a pretty torrid time, racking up twenty first round defeats in the first 28 events he played, but ironically finished off with a pair of board wins in the last two events having not won one all year (and only getting to that stage twice in the first place). He's always seemed a better stage player however, and on the Euro Tour he did more damage, qualifying for four seems about right, but he got past the seed in three of them, beating Peter Wright (and interestingly Cameron Menzies in the first round), Stephen Bunting, and then in Leverkusen he'd beat both Ross Smith and James Wade to reach a quarter final, narrowly losing to eventual finalist Damon Heta. Matt repeated a career best fourth round appearance at the UK Open with a win over Nathan Girvan, but couldn't convert in what looked like a winnable game against Alan Soutar, while Darius Labanauskas would knock him out relatively early in the World Masters. Very capable at his best, we've just not seen that much of it in 2025.

Matt will face Adam Sevada in an all North American clash, the American having a breakout year in 2025 to qualify for a world championship for the first time. Sevada did this with a very fast start on the CDC circuit, winning four events back to back, adding a fifth later in the season, to finish top of the CDC rankings and book his spot here outright. This gave him entry into a few of their other events, the one that most viewers will have seen being the US Darts Masters, where he put in a poor showing against Gerwyn Price, but aside from that Adam made the semi final of the Cross Border Challenge (losing to Leonard Gates), got into the North American championship but would lose in the opening round to Jim Long (so a common opponent given Campbell beat him later in the event), and would also reach the semi finals of the Continental Cup, narrowly losing to eventual champion Alex Spellman. He did pop across for the World Masters, beating Martijn Dragt but losing to Karel Sedlacek, and hopefully he'll return for that next year and maybe give Q-School and some of the other early events a go. He's looking alright domestically, but lack of performances in limited stage experience could be a worry.

I think I've got to go for Wade here. First round shouldn't be any problem, and I think he should be too steady for Evans, who I'm thinking will just have a bit too much firepower for Leung, although that's not a guarantee. Menzies against Manby is an interesting one. Charlie clearly has massive potential and upside, having the peak game that can match up with Menzies' peak game, which I'm not even sure we'll see. It wouldn't surprise me if he pulled the upset here, and I think whoever wins that one would have the edge over Campbell, who I think despite meh form is a better talent than Sevada. James has just done enough this year however that I think he gets a run going. Winner - James Wade

Gian van Veen's made the biggest breakthrough of anyone this season, going from having no senior title to winning a Pro Tour to winning a major title in the European Championship, a not unexpected rise but still a very sharp one and getting the major title was perhaps a tad quicker than many thought. In that event, van Veen defeated Damon Heta, Ryan Searle and Ryan Joyce with few problems, got past Michael van Gerwen 11-9 in the semi final before surviving a match dart to claim the title against Luke Humphries. It's a huge achievement that cements his place amongst the world's elite, but not the only thing of note. Prior to that, Gian made new bests of quarter finals in the UK Open and Matchplay, with a near 110 average against Heta in the former, a match which went the distance, and a win over Humphries in the Matchplay. He drew Littler at Leicester and had a very tough Slam group which he couldn't get out of, but would beat Humphries again at Minehead before a bit of a surprise defeat to Krzysztof Ratajski. Gian made a second Euro Tour final, coming up short against van Gerwen, but finished that season very strongly with three semi finals in the last four events, only being stopped by Rock, Bunting and Aspinall. van Veen would also retain his world youth championship, becoming only the second player to do so after Dimitri van den Bergh, would make a World Cup debut, reaching the semi finals with Danny Noppert, and continued to look strong on the floor, picking up his first title with a dominant win against Luke Humphries a day after making a third career final where he fell just short against Joe Cullen, and would later add a further final where Gerwyn Price emerged victorious. Two semi finals, five quarter finals and a further five board victories shows great consistency at the Pro Tour level. He surely has to be in discussion for the Premier League, but may need a solid run here to avoid any sort of "is it too early" questions as we've seen for many younger players in the past. For me it isn't.

Cristo Reyes makes a surprise and welcome return to the world stage, ending a five year absence after winning the Mediterranean qualifier to make the field. Reyes, who's previously made the last sixteen at this event, returns having beaten former card holder Jesus Noguera and current card holder Michele Turetta along the way, before claiming a 7-4 win against Ricardo Perez to get back here. The numbers he was putting up on stage were very good, almost as if he was back at his best, breaking the ton barrier on at least one occasion. Really kind of hard to say where he's at beyond that, following losing his tour card in 2021 he's basically been completely off the radar, trying to get his card back at 2022 Q-School but not managing it. All we can really do is look at the numbers and see how they match up with how we know he could play - he's been good enough before to get into the seeding spots for here, has done enough to qualify for the Matchplay, and has been to the last sixteen of multiple majors. You don't do that by accident, and if he is to show up and play like he did in the qualifier, then he does stand a chance, although clearly it's a horrible draw for him.

Alan Soutar comes back for a fourth appearance here, managing two back to back last sixteen appearances in his first two efforts which saw him creep into the top 32 at one point, but missed 2024 and lost in the opening round to Kai Gotthardt last season, so will look to rectify that after finishing around the middle of the Pro Tour standings, staying safely the right side of the tour card cutoff for now. On the floor, Alan took a while to get going, not losing too many early matches but not progressing particularly deep either, and it would take until June where he had good back to back days of a board win and a first quarter final of the season, a stage he would match in consecutive days in Milton Keynes in August, before form tailed off somewhat with six first round exits in the last nine events of the season. That accumulation was enough to book a Players Championship Finals spot with a fair bit of safety, but he couldn't get that far up the rankings and while a draw of Luke Woodhouse was by no means the worst he could have got, he was still a clear second best. Europe was a struggle, only getting through the qualifiers to make a pair of events, losing to Cameron Menzies and Matt Campbell in the opening round in them. He couldn't get much going at the Masters, being on the wrong end of William Borland's surprise run, but did have a bit of a good tournament at the UK Open, not matching his previous best but whitewashing Callan Rydz and coming out the better against Matt Campbell on this occasion, then giving Jonny Clayton a bit of a run for his money but ending up losing 10-7. Alan is a winner on the Pro Tour from 2024 and has made a big quarter final in the Grand Slam in the past, but looks a bit off that level right now.

Teemu Harju will be making his first appearance here, being one of a number of players who made big improvements from previously on a secondary tour, having shown up in a few of the Nordic events last year but making strides in 2025. His qualification comes from winning the inaugural Nordic and Baltic Championship, where coming in as the second seed he beat Par Riihonen, card holder Cor Dekker, Johan Engstrom and then won the final heavily against Edwin Torbjornsson, averaging in the mid 90's as he came out the 8-2 victor. Harju didn't actually need this win to qualify, as he just scraped home into second on the Nordic and Baltic Tour, losing one final early but winning two others, notably the last one to draw level with Oskar Lukasiak on cash but claim the place on countback. Harju reached the quarter finals or better in nine of the twelve events, and in those weekends he was also able to win through to a pair of European Tour events - pushing Ryan Joyce fairly hard but coming up short in the first, then not pushing Dirk van Duijvenbode very hard in the second with Dirk winning every leg and averaging over a ton. He played the World Cup with Marko Kantele, but would be stunned by New Zealand (not so much the win, more the 4-0 nature of it) and Argentina, winning just the one leg in the event despite being the seeds in the group, and wasn't quite high enough in the rankings when the Nordic Darts Masters came around to get the call up for that. Maybe next year? Solid enough player and he can't complain too much about this draw.

Dimitri van den Bergh has had a bad 2025. A multiple major winner, including just last year at the UK Open, he's now in a position where a large percentage of his ranking money is going to disappear in a few months and it's hard to say where it will come back from. The season started out alright, with a run to the semi finals of the Masters, with a good trio of wins over Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson and Nathan Aspinall, and at the UK Open he'd make a steady run to the last sixteen with wins over Raymond van Barneveld and Chris Dobey, before barely averaging 70 in a heavy loss to Michael Smith. Having not done a great deal on the floor to that point, losing as a seed in the first two European Tour events of the season before getting off the mark in the third against Thibault Tricole (only to be whitewashed next round by Martin Schindler), and having a 3-7 opening round record on the Pro Tour, Dimitri took a break, but would not do much of anything when he did come back. He didn't qualify for another European Tour event all season having dropped from the seeding positions, while his main order of merit ranking slipped from the top 16, so he ended up missing all the majors, the only chances of getting into any being the Grand Slam (where he lost in the qualifier to Joshua Richardson), and the Players Championship Finals, but he couldn't get enough together to make that either - playing in the last eighteen events but losing in the first round in twelve of them. He was technically still live to make it up to the final event, where he made a season's best run to the quarter finals, but a loss to Chris Dobey at that stage would end his chances. It's hard to say if there's something wrong off the oche and I wouldn't like to speculate to that extent, but this is nowhere near the Dimitri of 18-24 months ago.

Darren Beveridge, the man with maybe the best nickname in the sport (after the two better ones were forced to change it by the killjoys), will make a first world championship appearance in the second year of his tour card, and while it seems like way too much to ask for him to save it after a 2024 where he frankly didn't get a lot done, making it here through the Pro Tour rankings (safely in mid table) is at least trending in the right direction and ought to give him some confidence that he can claim it back in January. With steady scoring throughout the year, Darren showed good improvement on the floor, with a little bit of a slow start prior to a couple of board wins in the second quarter of the year, but his best run would come in September, beating the Dutch trio of Klaasen, Noppert and van Veen as well as Ryan Joyce to reach the quarter finals, losing to Ryan Searle. This was steady enough progress to get into the top 64 and hence make Minehead, where he'd run into Ryan Searle again and lose 6-1. He made a single European Tour where he would get a good, if scrappy, win over Wessel Nijman, while in the "everyone plays" majors he went out in the groups in the Masters after losing to Andreas Harrysson, but get a UK Open win over James Hurrell, prior to losing to Justin Hood. He's been around for a while and looks pretty competent all round, as long as the big stage does not completely overwhelm him, there's enough here that he's got a very realistic chance of putting a couple of wins together.

Madars is the Latvian number one who's fallen back a bit from the peak around three years ago where he'd crept into the seedings here and qualified for the tough to get to majors, but is still safely hanging around in the top 50 and will make a seventh straight appearance here and a tenth world championship overall if you include his BDO appearances before switching to the PDC. Razma ended up just above midway in the Pro Tour standings, and will be looking to repeat his third round runs from the last two seasons. There weren't too many major floor successes, he has made more than one Pro Tour final in the past, but the closest he would get is an early semi final run where he would beat two world champions in Michael Smith and Gary Anderson, a third if you include Stephen Bunting, only losing in the semi to Gian van Veen, although that semi wasn't close at all. Aside from that however it was mostly a dry spell, with just a pair of board wins but more first round wins than losses, hence losing in the top 64 or 32 most of the time, which is what his ranking suggests should happen. Razma played in four Euro Tours, the best being the first, where as an alternate he knocked out Danny Noppert to make round three before losing to Peter Wright. He got into two more through the Pro Tour list (not sure how) but lost in the first round in both, and qualified legitimately just once, beating a domestic qualifier to get to Martin Schindler, where he lost. The majors he did play were a mixed bag, he'd lose his first Masters game to Radek Szaganski, but pick up wins in both the Minehead events, getting past Ryan Meikle comfortably and Ricardo Pietreczko just about to get to the second day of the UK Open where he'd keep things relatively close against Michael Smith, while he surprised a lot by turning over Dirk van Duijvenbode just recently, only to then be a distant second best to Danny Noppert. He's always been a tad inconsistent, but if he brings one of the better versions of his game he can get something going here.

Jamai van den Herik is a relatively new name to me, not being completely unknown as there are a couple of Dev Tour runs in my database dating back to 2020, but to get here is virtually out of nowhere. Jamai finished in the top six in both the Development Tour and the Challenge Tour, it being the former that got him here after a couple of people ahead of him in the rankings qualified directly through the Pro Tour. On the Dev Tour, van den Herik did most of his work late, picking up a pair of titles, one each in the fourth and fifth weekends, going on a couple of deepish runs in the first weekend but not really doing that much mid season. The Challenge Tour was somewhat similar, but he got one win in May over Graham Hall and a second in August against Jenson Walker, that second one being straight after he reached a semi final earlier on the same day to show some good stamina levels. These would be enough to see him get to quite a few Pro Tour events, and he started making an immediate impression, winning his first match in each of his first nine appearances, picking up wins against the likes of Damon Heta, Mike de Decker, Wessel Nijman and Cameron Menzies, with a best run being to a quarter final shortly after the Matchplay. His latter season form tailed off a tad, hitting a run of five straight first round losses, but that last one was only a 6-5 loss to Littler which is hardly a negative, and two others were at least deciders. It is really hard to say what he will do on a big stage - at least with many we've seen some sort of previous stage game, but this looks like it will be his first stage game and first major appearance of any description, so how he reacts will be unknown. A lot of the kids simply wouldn't care and just throw darts for sure, but that isn't universal, and it's definitely an open question as to what will happen.

This is the most wide open section, except for one player. Reyes being back and looking good is exciting, but it's a horror draw and van Veen, assuming he doesn't have any weird Ally Pally mental blockages given he's not actually won a game here, should wipe the floor with anyone. Soutar I think will have the experience and course and distance to deal with Harju, and I think we might see the same with Razma over van den Herik. Dimitri however I just don't know, is the confidence there? I think it'll be there with Beveridge. That bottom section is incredibly even and I think you can make a reasonable case for any of the eight permutations of results. I'll go with Madars over Darren, but I won't argue against anyone who says literally anything different. Who goes to the last sixteen might be the most obvious one we've had yet though. Winner - Gian van Veen

Worlds post 5/8 - the Humphries bit

I suppose this year has been alright for Luke, given that the newest Luke on the block is doing a fantastic job of limiting his upside. Humphries was able to win a couple of big events this year - the biggest one in the public eye being the Premier League, going one better than last season by being able to beat Littler in the final, but the main one for us was taking the Masters (because it's ranked), where he was able to avoid Littler, he having been knocked out by the other finalist in Jonny Clayton, but still had a few tough opponents such as Josh Rock to get through. Otherwise on TV it was usually a case of when will you run into Littler - it'd be Wade that'd stop him in the UK Open after he won a tough game against Beau Greaves then got two real comfortable victories, while it'd be Gian van Veen that secured a pair of first round wins at Blackpool and the Minehead return. It would be Littler in the final at the Grand Prix and Grand Slam, while it was van Veen once more who denied him at the European Championship. On the lower circuits, Luke ended up drawing van Veen in Minehead mainly down to playing very little of the Pro Tour, maxing an early semi final and one final (where he lost to van Veen again), but needing to play most of the back end of the season where he didn't do much, meanwhile in Europe Luke played more than half the events, winning one in Prague where he had a moderately tough trip to the final, but would beat Josh Rock there to claim it, but that was the only final of the year, five other final session appearances all falling short at the quarter or semi final stage. Perhaps the oddest one was the early elimination from the World Cup, where England were prohibitive favourites but lost to Germany in their first game. He still remains, for my money, the second best player in the world, but there's a heck of a lot bigger gap between first and second than there is second and maybe even fifth.

Evetts comes back here for the first time in a few years, this being his second year off the tour but doing enough on the Challenge Tour to book his spot, although getting the card back through that route needed a bit more in terms of results. A third place finish behind Bellmont and Labanauskas was enough with the new qualification criteria, and on that Challenge Tour, Evetts reached two finals on the second weekend, winning the second by defeating Michael Unterbuchner in the final, and while he wasn't able to make any further finals, he did get to the last four on four separate occasions, only being stopped by decent known names on each occasion. This got him through to most of the Pro Tour events, only missing the first few, winning his board once beating major champion Mike de Decker on the way, but frequently just making up the numbers, suffering first round losses to a lot of people who aren't here like Thomas Lovely, Pero Ljubic, Robert Grundy (twice), Danny van Trijp - generally the sorts of names he'd need to be beating if he wanted to hold his card should he be able to win one in January. Sure, he got his fair share of awkward draws, but you expect that. Those results weren't enough to make any majors, and he had no invite to the Masters or UK Open, and as of the recent changes couldn't try to get onto the Euro Tour either. Maybe he could have augmented his schedule with some WDF events, but I can't see that he's tried that. It's been a bounce back season and he'll be glad to be here, but this is almost the worst draw he could get.

Jeffrey de Graaf's had a nice year, following a very good run this time last year where he reached the fourth round, stunning many by taking out qualifier Rashad Sweeting prior to a straight sets win against Gary Anderson and a comfortable win over Nebrida after losing the first set. He'd go out to Michael van Gerwen but can have no complaints with his run. The breakthrough this year came on the flor - having had the odd flash in the past, de Graaf, who skipped the early events as well as the UK Open for personal reasons, would make an early final, but would lose to Schindler 8-1 with a sub-80 average, making him 0-2 in Pro Tour finals after losing one the year before to Brendan Dolan. He would get a second shot later in the season, and against a much tougher proposition in Stephen Bunting, he'd claim his first title in a deciding leg, defying a 106 average from the Bullet. He couldn't add much more after that, and between the two there were quite a few first round exits, but a win is a win. Jeffrey got to a pair of European Tour events, losing out to Dirk van Duijvenbode and Steve Lennon without really troubling either, and while his results were enough to get him into the Players Championship Finals with a top half seeding, it just happened to be the seeding that would be thrown against Luke Littler in the opening round, and you can't do too much about that. An experienced player, who had a bit of a break from the game between his card holding spells and some decent BDO success prior to that, he might be playing the best stuff now he has done in years.

Paul Lim needs no introduction, the Lakeside finalist from last year is perhaps unfairly known as "that guy that hit that nine darter once" to many, but this will be his fifteenth PDC world championship and 28th overall, but his first on this stage for four years, losing to Joe Murnan on that occasion. Lim returns having got a fifth place finish on the Asian Tour, winning an opening weekend event in Dubai, making a final on the second in Japan, adding a second win the following tour weekend in Malaysia, and making a further final later in the year in Singapore. Third through seventh in the table were all fairly close, but as seventh was enough to qualify for here, the actual finish in the middle of that cluster didn't matter too much. These performances got Lim into the Asian Championship, where he beat two players who have also qualified for here in Zong and Azemoto in the knockout stages, and nearly made the final, only losing to eventual finalist Alexis Toylo - a loss which, in retrospect, saw Lim just a leg away from a Grand Slam debut. Perhaps surprisingly given he made their final last year, Paul only has one event outside of that final in his WDF rankings, a win in the Mongolian Open back in May, and I'm not even sure he'd have played that if there wasn't the Asian Tour in the same place the day after. But hey, he's in his seventies now, I think he's earned the right to pick and choose a bit.

Nijman is an extremely dangerous upcoming player, who after his early career was put on hold for "reasons", has made a belated breakthrough into the top 32 in the world and real progress this season, following his first senior title in 2024. Wessel started the season with four straight board wins, and would accumulate very solid performances all season until hitting a devastating run of form to end the year. In the last ten events, Nijman won his board on every single occasion - turning two into quarter finals, two into semi finals, and two into outright wins, grabbing a deciding leg victory over Damon Heta, and an 8-5 win over Luke Woodhouse to close the season out. That phenomenal form saw Wessel go into the Players Championship Finals as the number two seed, but there he would end up a surprise first round loser, playing great but losing a deciding leg to Richard Veenstra. In Europe, he played every single event, getting to a pair of semi finals and a pair of quarter finals, and adding a couple of quarters to accumulate much needed big stage experience. That's still a question - he lost his first UK Open game to Scott Williams, and on debuts in the tough to get to majors, he would beat Nathan Aspinall at Blackpool, but then see Wade pull away in the latter stages of their second round game, and then miss out in an extremely tight game against Rob Cross in Leicester. He had a tough draw in Dortmund against van Gerwen and lost a deciding leg, got through an incredibly deadly Slam group only to be immediately fed to Luke Littler, then we had the Veenstra reverse. The numbers don't lie - van Veen has drawn the headlines as the next Dutch big thing, but Wessel is not far behind at all. If at all.

Karel Sedlacek will think himself a tad unlucky to get this draw, finishing fifth in the Pro Tour rankings but ending up with this as a first round tie. Karel needed to return to Q-School after ending just on the wrong side of the line last year, but got his card back, and has looked extremely solid in 2025 to claim a fifth appearance here having been really disappointing in a first round defeat last season. This year on the floor he has been steady - four quarter finals, including two back to back in Milton Keynes, five further board wins, and getting out of the opening game around two thirds of the time shows a level of consistency with the threat to go further. Europe was good - getting to six events, starting with a great run in Riesa to the quarter finals where he beat the Dutch trio of Wattimena, van Barneveld and Noppert before hitting eventual champion Stephen Bunting, and Karel would continue beating up on the Dutch with another win over Barney and one over (you guessed it) Nijman in Belgium, to give a pretty solid season in that arena. Outside of a fine run in the World Cup to the quarter finals, after years of Czechia being "will they win a match ever please", the TV events were a tad mediocre, getting through his Masters group but losing to Ricky Evans, a very surprising 6-1 loss to qualifier Paul Rowley in the UK Open, in the Grand Slam (for which he qualified through the tour card holder qualifier) he got into a winner takes all clash with Connor Scutt but couldn't bring it home, then having made the PC Finals he ended up with a tricky draw against Nathan Aspinall which he couldn't get past. Very strong player, just very unfortunate here with who he's come up against.

Clemens, I think it's fair to say, seems to have had a fair bit of a drop off in his ranking, now well out of the top 32 and not really doing anything to indicate he might be heading back in the right direction. He'd dropped enough, be that through Euro Tour rule changes meaning that he didn't get a free pass to most of the German events, form or whatever, that he missed both the Matchplay and the Grand Prix last year, and the same happened in 2025. To get back there he'll need to do something on the floor, and while this year was a bit better than last, it still wasn't great. One semi final and one quarter final (both, it should be said, on the continent) was a better return than last year, but he barely got through the first round more than half the time, and about half of those again were one and done, so it's not as if he was consistently making and/or winning board finals. On the European Tour, where he would usually be good for at least lots of appearances, he qualified twice - once in Sindelfingen where he narrowly lost to Andrew Gilding in a decent game, then ending the season in Hildesheim, but only through the reserve list, where he beat the eastern Europe qualifier prior to another decent game but a loss against Chisnall. This left him nowhere near Dortmund, he lost in the very first round of the Grand Slam qualifier, leaving him just the pair of Minehead events. At the UK Open he was in another good game, but lost a tight one to Ricky Evans, and while he did do enough to make the PC Finals, it was only as one of the last ten players in the field, which gave him Josh Rock in the opening round, going as expected. Now very clearly the German number four at best, the statistics are down from where they have been, but not terrible, so we'll see what happens.

Alex Spellman was very hotly tipped to be one of the few north American based players to have a chance to get a tour card a couple of years ago prior to him making his debut (where he lost to Ryan Joyce in a really good game) here. He returns after a year away, with the hype nowhere near what it was, and will look to pick up a first win on this stage. The North Carolina native returns having won the CDC Continental Cup, coming in as the number 5 seed and beating three players ranked ahead of him in Leonard Gates, Adam Sevada and David Cameron in the final to book his Ally Pally return. On that CDC circuit, Spellman had a fairly quiet season, winning just the single event and making one further final, which is OK but you'd have liked a bit more, leaving him just fifth in the rankings, meaning he did need to win that event to get here. Alex had a bit of a run in the Cross Border Challenge, losing out to former Lakeside finalist Jeff Smith at the semi final stage, but couldn't get into the North American Championship or the US Darts Masters. The tournament he did win however was the one that gave the Grand Slam ticket, where Alex was a bit disappointing - given a group of Humphries, Aspinall and Smith I wasn't expecting him to get out of the group or anything like that, but four legs and three averages below 85 wasn't what I was expecting. Spellman has played a lot of WDF events and is ranked in the top 10 in their system, winning three events outright and picking up points in a dozen events, so at least has some winning record this year outside the PDC and their affiliates.

This seems an easy enough section to call, or does it? Humphries should be absolutely fine to round three, while I think de Graaf should beat Lim comfortably enough I can't see a repeat of last year's heroics. Sedlacek should give Nijman a decent work out but Wessel should win that, and should win against whoever he plays - Clemens I think has an edge, but I don't think it's a huge edge. Then can Nijman pull the upset? Humphries has been losing to the other Dutch wonderkid at will, but has won their two meetings this year - both on the Euro Tour, but Wessel averaged just under a ton the first time and over a ton the second time which went all eleven legs, so he can certainly keep it close. If he'd got a couple more TV wins of note I'd feel a bit more confident in the chances he could pull the upset, but this player on this stage I think for now is a tad too far. Winner - Luke Humphries

Seems like it's been a pretty strong season for Aspinall, although it's been a case of different areas at different times to some degree. The start of the season was good TV form - justifying a controversial Premier League call up by reaching the playoffs, and hitting back to back major quarter finals, comfortably beating Gilding and Menzies at the Masters before a bit of a surprise loss to Dimitri van den Bergh, while at the UK Open he beat Lukeman, van der Velde and O'Connor before being drawn against Josh Rock. The mid season then switched to the Euro Tour, where Aspinall picked up his first title at that level in Göttingen, and would add two more later in the season, first in Leverkusen and later in Hildesheim to end top of the European Tour rankings and go into Dortmund as the number one seed. That didn't help that much, as TV results in the middle of the year were mostly misses - first round exits to Nijman and Humphries at Blackpool and Leicester respectively, at Dortmund that number 1 seeding didn't give him a great draw, he got past Rob Cross but then lost to Danny Noppert, and he couldn't get out of a fairly tough group at the Grand Slam which saw Humphries and Michael Smith advance. The season finished well however - he didn't play much on the floor but did hit two finals, losing to Damon Heta early on and Wattimena near the season end, but that was enough to get to the Players Championship Finals, where as the number 34 seed he got past the dangerous Karel Sedlacek, Richard Veenstra, Danny Noppert, Josh Rock and then Jermaine Wattimena to reach the final. There, he would be the favourite in terms of seeds by 2, but that doesn't help if you're facing Luke Littler. It looks like the injury issues he's had are either behind him, or at least manageable, so maybe he can go on a little run here.

Ilagan takes his PDC worlds appearance count up to double figures, but will be looking for just a second excursion into the second round and only his second win outside of short leg qualifiers (and I saw that proper win damnit). Lourence returns having won the Asian Championship, defending his title with wins over Christian Perez, Motomu Sakai and then Alexis Toylo in the final. This would have booked him a spot in the Grand Slam, but unfortunately he withdrew for medical reasons, so let's hope he'll be right for this and we don't need to see any alternates or byes. Ilagan's season was solid, finishing third in the Asian Tour rankings behind only Toylo and Sakai, winning a pair of titles in each of Dubai and Manila, which with that Asian Championship win saw Ilagan go 5-1 in finals for the season, showing he does it when it matters most. Lourence's numbers were solid, finishing only behind Seigo Asada on the Asian Tour (who played too limited a schedule to really count), and he's got plenty of experience on this stage, which will help somewhat. He also briefly dipped his toes into the WDF circuit, winning the pretty highly ranked Korea Open, beating Raymond Smith in the final which is a pretty solid scakp given he is the third favourite to win that event as of right now. Seems like an unfortunate draw, against many other players I'd have given him a legitimate shot of running his opponent close, but Nathan ought to be too good here.

Mickey will similarly reach a tenth appearance here, with a steady record of reaching the second round after taking quite some time to get a first win on the stage, nearly getting further last year having pushed Jonny Clayton to a deciding leg in the last 64. Mansell returns after a decent if unspectacular season on the Pro Tour, ending in the top ten of those who qualified through that method. A former Pro Tour title winner, Mickey didn't get close to adding a second, but did reach a couple of quarter finals but made only five board finals outside of that, two of them in the first four events of the season and two in the last three, leaving a concerning spell of 25 tournaments in the middle where he lost in the first or second round 23 times. He did pick up enough first round wins at least to get into the Players Championship Finals, but would be drawn against James Wade in the opening round and lose 6-3. The European Tour was a bit better, getting into a solid five events and picking up five wins, although one of those was a walkover win to book the only time he got past the second round. A couple of the first round wins were against decent opponents (de Decker, O'Connor) and he missed a match dart to knock Luke Humphries out in Kiel, so some alright performances for sure. His only other events were in the majors everyone can play - he was close to making the main draw of the Masters, notably beating Jimmy van Schie but dropping a deciding set to William Borland, while he drew Beau Greaves in the UK Open and went down 6-2 in the third round. Still a steady player capable of putting the pressure on many ranked higher than him.

Leonard Gates will make a third appearance here, and will be looking for at least a repeat of last year's second round game (where he lost to possible second round opponent Aspinall), having come through the opening game both times with wins over Geert Nentjes and, most recently, Cameron Menzies. Gates qualified through winning the Cross Border Challenge - it's not entirely clear whether there was a spot for this initially or if it got shifted on account of Matt Campbell not being able to use his spot, Gates having won it back in April well before the actual qualifying criteria were announced, but it doesn't really matter. In that event, Gates had three averages above 90, pushing up close to 100 in his final win over Jeff Smith, and never really looked troubled at any point. Leonard also won a pair of CDC titles, starting and finishing the season with one, but would go out in the quarter final stages of the North American Championship as well as the Continental Cup. Gates did also play the US Darts Masters, winning just the one leg against van Gerwen, and has been fairly prolific on the WDF circuit, winning three titles and getting to three further finals, which puts Gates second currently in their ranking system. He was also one of four players in this field to play in the final seniors' world event, but would lose there to Graham Usher in the quarter finals. Certainly with chances, especially if he can hit one of the patches we know he can where he can score heavily for fun (and isn't asked to do any counting).

de Decker has had an alright season, making some progress in some areas but not really pushing on massively after his somewhat surprising major title win in 2024. On the floor, Mike was OK - nine board wins, two of which went to the quarters, and another two got as far as the semis, but he was unable to reach a final or repeat his debut success from last year. Given the strength in depth there is these days, that isn't necessarily surprising and the record isn't bad, but you think maybe he might have got a touch more. Mike did however reach a final on the Euro Tour for the first time, nearly going all the way having beaten Thomas Lovely, Luke Humphries, Martin Schindler, Gerwyn Price and Ross Smith, but despite backing from being on home soil, Luke Littler was a bit too much to handle in the final. That however would be about the only success, he flicked between being just the right and wrong side of being seeded, and had quite a lot of second round exits, only getting to round three on three occasions, two of which he was a seeded player anyway. TV saw quick exits to Wade and Menzies in the first two major events (the Wade match at the Masters was at least close), but he would get a first Blackpool win against Dave Chisnall. His Grand Prix defence ended at the same stage, beating Peter Wright prior to a loss against Littler. James Wade would beat him heavily in the first round at Dortmund, he missed the Grand Slam, and at the Players Championship Finals he'd lose a deciding leg in a scrappy game with Cam Crabtree. Still playing alright, but maybe a touch overranked right now.

David Munyua will make his debut at this event, becoming the first Kenyan to appear in the tournament after winning the African qualifying event. While many were expecting that crown to go to Peter Wachiuri, it would be Munyua who would make it after Peter surprisingly went out in the early rounds. David progressed over a series of opponents, the quality of which is probably best described as a mixed bag, to get through to the final with Cameron Carolissen, who impressed to some extent last year at the worlds. Munyua was eventually able to make a break stick and lead 5-3, then serve it out, finishing with a couple of nervy seven visit kills, Carolissen missing darts to break at 7-6 and throw for the worlds spot. Probably his best performance came in the quarters where his average ticked over 85, so he can throw to an OK standard. There is a somewhat fledgling African circuit, where it looks like David played three events, losing early in two and in the quarter finals in another, and that's really all I can find about him.

Kevin Doets will make a third appearance here as one of the top players to come through the Pro Tour rankings, only just missing out on the top 40 spot, which he might well get next year should he repeat his success from twelve months ago where defeated Noa Lynn van Leuven, stunned Michael Smith in an overtime deciding set, and then got to the last sixteen with a deciding set win over Krzysztof Ratajski, perhaps being unlucky not to go further having led Chris Dobey 3-2 in sets. On the floor, Doets' record was solid - starting strong with an early run of four straight quarter final runs, he'd reach that stage or better on another four occasions throughout the season, peaking with a semi final run in Leicester in September, losing out to eventual winner Ryan Searle on that occasion. European action was disappointingly limited, being restricted to just four appearances, losing to Edhouse and Menzies in the first couple, getting a bit of a run together in Austria with wins over van Peer and Aspinall for a season best third round finish after just losing to Martin Schindler, then in Prague he beat Daryl Gurney before losing to Stephen Bunting. He's getting close to making the bigger majors but isn't quite there yet, which left TV appearances somewhat limited. He got to the main bracket of the World Masters, and might want a deciding leg loss to Peter Wright back, while at the UK Open he beat Greg Ritchie as you'd expect, before losing to Michael Smith as you'd likely also expect. Kevin did have a decent seeding at the Minehead return given his good floor performances, but would lose in the opening round to Callan Rydz. He did have a little cameo on the World Series stage, being invited to the Dutch event and beating Nathan Aspinall, nearly reaching the semis but just losing out to Gerwyn Price. This got him to the finals where he edged out Jermaine Wattimena and narrowly lost to Luke Humphries. A very competent player with a lot of time on his side, he just needs some sort of breakthrough result at some level to continue progression.

Matthew Dennant won his tour card just under two years ago, and is looking at a miracle run to try to save it, having not done a huge amount in 2024, but doing enough this time around to finish midway up the Pro Tour rankings and book a debut appearance here. Probably best known for some time as that guy who missed match darts to deny Glen Durrant a tour card, Dennant's had a fairly steady season on the Pro Tour, with a good early back to back run seeing him win his board and then reach the quarter finals in the next one, notably beating Danny Noppert in one of the events. A second quarter followed in July, but didn't win his board after that point for a fairly slow end to the season. Matthew made a trio of European Tour events, losing a deciding leg to Pietreczko in Wieze, beating Rowby John Rodriguez in Austria but losing to Martin Schindler, while in Budapest he'd beat Andrew Gilding but lose to Michael van Gerwen. That clearly wasn't enough to reach Dortmund, and he didn't do enough to get to the Players Championship Finals either, but as he only missed that by one or two wins, the combined money and expanded qualification spots saw him safely here. Dennant didn't do much in the majors he did get into - losing out in a group to Justin Hood and Pero Ljubic at the Masters would have been annoying, beating Hood but losing to Ljubic having been a set up, then in the UK Open he got a bye to round two, beat Andy Boulton, but lost to Thomas Lovely. He's alright statistically, but not really turned enough to make me think he's at a top 64 level right now.

This looks like it's another one that'll be seed against seed. Aspinall should have no trouble with Ilagan. I think Mansell has the beating of Gates, but if Leonard brings his best game it'll certainly be interesting. de Decker ought to have no problems against Munyua, while I think Doets is a clear tier or two ahead of Dennant. Can't see Nathan not reaching the third round. de Decker against Doets could be interesting. They've not played this year but as far as I can see Kevin has won their three meetings, two of them in moderately pressure situations with one being on last year's Euro Tour and the other being the semi of the Pro Tour that Doets made the final of in 2023. I think Mike has enough, but Kevin winning wouldn't shock me. Regardless, it's hard to look past Nathan given his body of work in 2025, the numbers aren't overwhelmingly in his favour and a 15-18 seeding battle ought in theory to be close, but Nathan's got course and distance here. Winner - Nathan Aspinall

Worlds post 4/8 - the Clayton bit

Was 2025 the second year of the Ferret? Quite possibly. One way or another, it was really damned solid. Jonny really rolled back the years and chucked his name into the pot as a legitimate contender for a Premier League return, with solid results across all levels and solid statistics to back things up. Those sorts of claims ought to be started by talking about TV form, and it was good - albeit a game of two halves. Jonny was a leg away from winning the Masters, having knocked out Littler in the quarters, he came from 5-2 down in sets to force Humphries to a decider, but was not quite able to get over the line and Luke won the title. Three major semi finals followed (along with a final in the World Cup) - stopped by Littler twice in the UK Open and the Grand Prix, and only losing to Wade in the Matchplay in overtime. After that however, things fell of a cliff with a first round loss to Searle in Dortmund, a failure to get out of a group which didn't seem that hard in the Slam, and then a first round loss to James Hurrell in the Players Championship Finals. Not really the trend you would like to see. Lower levels were generally decent - he added another European Tour title to his name in Rosmalen, notably beating Humphries in the semi final and having a fairly tough path throughout, and he would also pick up a Pro Tour title in April, with a dominant display over Dominik Gruellich in the final. Clayton would add a further final later in the season which he would lose to Stephen Bunting, and showed decent consistency with five other last eight runs, including two late in the season, where while it looked like his TV form was tailing off, his general form seemed alright. A seeding of five seems a fair bit high, but the results don't lie and the numbers aren't that far off things, so it really wouldn't surprise me if he was able to make a solid run here.

Adam Lipscombe is a new tour card holder who, at least according to Wiki, needed snookers to get into stage two of Q-School, but having got them, did more than enough to qualify on points for a tour card, and has made an extremely solid start to his PDC career to qualify here, having played whatever an ADC Global Championship is, losing out to known name Devon Petersen in the final of that event. Adam is here pretty much entirely on account of winnings on the Pro Tour - getting in as one of the last few players, he wasn't able to get anything going on the European Tour, only getting to the final round once (where he obviously lost), so it was all on the floor, where he was a surprise early finalist, beating Damon Heta, Dirk van Duijvenbode and otherwise a generally solid field to get through to Gary Anderson, where he kept things somewhat close early but fell away to a moderately one-sided defeat. Lipscombe would add a quarter final soon after, but a string of first and second round defeats, only getting to a board final twice (at least in the last five events for form purposes) was not ideal.  Adam was able to win through three rounds of the UK Open, defeating a qualifier then two seasoned opponents in Klaasen and White before perhaps surprisingly losing out to Jurjen van der Velde in round four, and he also had a very good result at the Minehead return, knocking out dangerous opponents in Menzies and Brooks prior to missing a huge chance with many missed match darts against Daryl Gurney to reach the quarter finals. That much of the good form was early is not ideal, but having seen recent flashes on TV and recently, and both combined, shows he's not going to be a walkover.

Dom Taylor's a name who has been around for a while, and it's kind of both a surprise and not a surprise that his will be a debut campaign, for reasons that will just be left described as "reasons" that most already know and anyone can find out about. This year saw Taylor end up solidly in the top half of the Pro Tour rankings, following a relatively steady campaign which saw an explosive start back on the tour with two semi finals in the first eight events, although both these results and his next best result of a quarter final took place outside of the UK where the field is typically a tad weaker. These would be enough for Dom to make it to Minehead recently, but there he would narrowly lose to Andrew Gilding in the opening round. That needed to be enough on its own - Taylor had a disastrous time on the European Tour, failing to qualify for a single event, only getting to the final round of qualifying twice, and nearly half the time he was losing to players he could beat - subjectively, you could say more, but then we start getting into the realms of opinions. There's little else to talk about - he played the UK Open and beat Steve Lennon in a decider, only to then lose a decider to Cameron Menzies in the third round. Taylor is an extremely dangerous proposition, the numbers don't lie, the concerns are lack of stage experience and maybe a trailing off in form in the second half of the year. But if he shows up, watch out.

Dom's opponent will be Oskar Lukasiak, a new tour card holder from twelve months ago, who booked his place at the biggest event on the calendar through the Nordic/Baltic tour, ending in a tie for second on that ranking with Teemu Harju, but avoiding any hilarity after Harju grabbed the Nordic regional championship, letting Oskar claim the second spot on his own. On that circuit, he won the first event in Riga over Andreas Harrysson, and while he would not be able to get a second title, he would reach three further finals throughout the season (losing to Harrysson on every occasion), which'd give him enough to make his debut on this stage. A relative veteran having played in the BDO World Masters in the noughties, it's only just in this season that he's really made progression to play at the highest level on a regular occasion after finishing high on the points tally to claim his card. Oskar has found the step up to this level tough - getting to one early board final mainly due to opposition woes would be his peak, he would only win maybe half a dozen games for the rest of the season, nicking a couple of alright results but generally only because he ran into players who were equally as far down the PDC food chain as he was. He didn't make the Euro Tour all year, would get out of his Masters group but then lose to Niels Zonneveld, and be heavily routed by Thomas Lovely in his first UK Open game. It feels like he is a much better player than the numbers and results suggest, but against a tough first round opponent, it's hard to make any sort of reasonable claim that this might be close.

Michael it seems, per what I've caught of recent interviews, seems to have been working through some injuries which certainly haven't helped his game, but even taking that into consideration, to see him slide as he has is pretty darned shocking, and unthinkable if you roll the clock back two years to when he was defending his world title. This season's seen some ups and downs and some sparks of possible returns to form, but at the same time it's shown a lot of average stuff. When he has been able to get on TV, he's not been too bad - making a pair of quarter finals, first at the UK Open where he avenged his worlds loss to Kevin Doets, got through a close one with Razma before thumping a very poor Dimitri, then lost a narrow one to possible opponent here Jonny Clayton. Later, having qualified for the Slam, he got out of a group containing Humphries and Aspinall then beat Chris Dobey in the knockout stages, before being a distant second best to Humphries. Otherwise, he didn't qualify for events you'd think he would (Matchplay, Grand Prix, Euro Champs) or was out early (Noppert in the Masters, Schindler in the PC Finals). He's a bit off the pace in the Pro Tour rankings, and he's not really showing signs of getting back - he missed the last four Euro Tours and only made one quarter final all year (where he did beat Humphries to be fair), while on the floor it was a rollercoaster - six out of eight first round losses to start, then an alright spell of eight where he got to a quarter and two semis, but ended with seven first round defeats in the last ten. He's clearly not forgotten how to play the game, he just needs to get properly healthy, then do something like bink a Pro Tour to get back up the rankings, into Euro Tours more easily, and back in all the majors. Which is not a big ask for someone with the talent he has.

His opening opponent will be Lisa Ashton, a four time Lakeside champion (although not since 2018 it should be said), who's been here on four previous occasions, not looking bad in any of them and getting to a deciding set twice, but still looking for a first win. Lisa is here having won the World Matchplay, with a big upset over Beau Greaves in the semi finals before a tight win over Fallon Sherrock in the final. That locked up the spot, but the former card holder (let's not forget that) would have been fine through the Women's Series rankings had she not picked up the title in Blackpool. On that series, Lisa won the opening event over debutant this year Gemma Hayter, and would reach four further finals, only really getting close to a win in the last one of those four, but it would be enough to lock up third place on the rankings. That Matchplay win got Lisa into the Grand Slam - not much was expected with a draw into a group of death including the deadly trio of young players in Rock, Nijman and van Veen, but she would push Gian to a deciding leg in the opening game, but then not pick up a leg in the other two matches. She did take up the World Masters invite, but couldn't get out of a group containing Stephen Burton and Aden Kirk. It would have been good if we had seen her try Q-School and play some Challenge Tour, but that didn't happen, and she seems to have not looked to do any of the WDF circuit either. Can still certainly be a dangerous player capable of winning 2-3 legs rapidly, but over a five set match it's probably too much of an ask.

Zonneveld is a developing player who was in the fringes of the top 64 for some time, but is starting to make a move up towards the top 32 following on from a breakthrough 2024, and doing more than consolidating this year, ending as the third player in the Pro Tour rankings and getting seeded frequently for those events. On the floor, Niels has looked remarkably consistent, not dropping many opening games and going deep frequently, with two quarter finals, three semi finals, as well as a debut final in Hildesheim, where he got what looked like a very decent opponent in terms of being able to claim a first title in Bialecki, but it would be the Pole that would come out a narrow 8-6 victor. Niels couldn't repeat his late season Euro Tour semi final, but was able to get into six events, getting to the third round on a couple of occasions with wins over Wade and Aspinall, but it wasn't enough to allow him to qualify for the tough majors, although it must have been fairly close and he's looking good at the moment to make them in 2026, which'll allow for a further push up the rankings. He'd have liked to have done a bit more in the Minehead events, losing out to Robert Owen and Nick Kenny in close ties, while Wattimena did for him at the Masters which I guess is fair enough given his form. He's never done a great deal here, but has got a decent chance of rectifying that record this year.

Haupai Puha was one of five players to win their spot here through the PDPA qualifier, and will make his third appearance here having previously won through the DPNZ rankings and the Oceanic Masters, and will be hoping for a first win, although losing his tour card looks virtually certain having won it in 2024 to become the first New Zealander to do so. In that qualifier, Hopes comfortably defeated Rhys Griffin and Greg Ritchie, but was forced all the way by Brett Claydon, needing to win the last five legs to come from behind, the final one being a missed double party but Puha finally hit for a huge 24 darter. On the tour, it's been a fair bit of a struggle and he does look a touch out of his depth, with recent form not being kind, not having reached a board final since before the Matchplay, and only doing so all season three times, pushing through to a board win once with a couple of good wins over Cross and Edhouse, averaging over a ton twice in that event to show what he can do at his best, but generally the averaging has been in the eighties, occasionally the low nineties, which typically isn't enough at this level. He did play the Masters but lost out to Darius Labanauskas in the group stages, and had a bit of a cameo at the UK Open to reach the last 64, beating Aden Kirk and Christian Kist to get there, but would lose a winnable game against Dylan Slevin 10-7. These two years will have been a good learning experience, and at 40 you feel this won't be a last hurrah by any means, but this is not an easy draw despite missing the true seeded players.

Can't see any of the seeds having any problems in round one. Lipscombe against any of the other three might have had a puncher's chance but getting Clayton is a tough one. In round two, I could easily see the actual seeds being pushed hard - Taylor is a legitimate contender, and I think with how things are trending, Zonneveld could easily break new ground on this stage and turn Smith over, he feels like a very similar sort of player in career trajectory to Kevin Doets who did the same thing twelve months ago. Tight ones to call, but I think Clayton will just have enough and then face probably an easier opponent either way in round three and come through. Winner - Jonny Clayton

Ross will make a ninth appearance here, and has a fairly underwhelming record on this stage, having not advanced beyond round three and surprisingly losing his opening game to Paolo Nebrida twelve months ago. This season has been alright in terms of numbers, but in terms of results it's been somewhat hit and miss. The best hits were on the floor, where Smith picked up a pair of Pro Tour titles - the first being a whitewash victory over Brendan Dolan, the second being a much tighter deciding leg win over Josh Rock. He was there or there abouts a lot, reaching the last eight or further on eight more occasions, which gave him a really strong seeding for the Players Championship Finals of 4 - although the upshot is that he would have faced Niko Springer, beat the alternate Meikle, then got Luke Littler so the seeding counted for little. Smith made a third Euro Tour final in Austria, but was never really close to defeating Martin Schindler once he got there and the path he had to reach that final was moderately generous, but the overall start to the tour was red hot, making the final session in four of the first five events, only to tail off for the remainder and be an even split of lose first game or lose second game. On the telly, Smith has struggled to get too much done, drawing and losing to Heta in the Masters, taking de Sousa out of the UK Open prior to going all the way with Josh Rock who'd win the deciding leg. He'd get Rock again and lose again in Blackpool, disappoint in Leicester losing to Daryl Gurney, while Gurney would beat him again in the last sixteen in Dortmund before not qualifying for the Grand Slam despite his two floor titles. Maybe his best performance was in the World Series finals, where he only just lost 10-8 to Littler but put up some huge numbers in the process. Very strong player and I don't think he can have any complaints about this section of the draw.

Harrysson is an extremely dangerous player on his day, who's played in the BDO/WDF worlds a couple of times, but will make his PDC debut at the age of 50 having won the Nordic and Baltic tour by a good distance from Teemu Harju and Oskar Lukasiak. Andreas, who many tipped to win a card at the start of the year, missed out on leg difference, so has had to make do with the relatively lucrative non card holder opportunities this year. On that Nordic tour, he won four events, doing the double in Reykjavik, and made another two finals to easily finish top of the table. He'd also make one Euro Tour through the qualifiers held on those weekends, beating former world champions in Michael Smith and Raymond van Barneveld prior to a last sixteen loss to Damon Heta. Harrysson had some moderate success on the Challenge Tour, not making a final but getting towards the business end on a few occasions, which got him high enough the rankings to get some occasional Pro Tour call ups. There, Harrysson was able to pick up three board wins on limited opportunities - none of these saw him face anyone truly difficult, but you can only beat who's in front of you to be fair. He'd play the World Masters, winning his group but losing in the first knockout round to Martin Lukeman, and he'd get past former card holder Scott Baker in the UK Open to cash before losing to Dominik Gruellich. Those who've seen him on the Super Series, amongst other events, know what he's capable of doing, particularly in short spells, so to see him come out of the blocks and put Smith in a hole would not be a surprise.

Tricole qualifies for his third PDC world championship having won a regional qualifier two years ago and finished mid table on the Pro Tour ranks last year, and it's that second route that sees him return looking for a third straight year where he at least wins his opening match, doing so first up in a gruelling tie with Joe Comito last year to see who got fed to Humphries, where Thibault didn't win a leg. 2025 has been OK in terms of results, maybe not so much in terms of statistics, but he's never seemed like a huge power scorer, more one that crafts chances and takes what he is given. Tricole would get to two quarter finals on the floor, but those were mainly down to good draws with the only really hard opponent he defeated on those runs being, ironically, Ross Smith, and beyond those two events, there would only be four board finals, none of which he would be able to convert. The Euro Tour was a fair bit better however, where he got to four events and picked up four wins - three of them being against Michael Smith, Jermaine Wattimena and Stephen Bunting, highlighting his ability to win by any means necessary, the last two being deciding legs where he was averaging less than his opponent. He couldn't get anything going in either the Masters or the UK Open, the latter one which he might want back where he lost comfortably to qualifier Tom Sykes, and he wasn't close to qualifying for anything else, maybe the closest being a semi final loss in a deciding leg in the Slam qualifier to Lukas Wenig. The numbers are not convincing, but that is not always everything.

Motomu will make a debut here after a breakout season on the Asian Tour. There, the Japanese player would be able to win four events - one on home soil, a brace in Mongolia and the last one in Singapore, adding a couple of finals along the way. He was a bit behind overall tour winner Alexis Toylo, but comfortably ahead of Lourence Ilagan to claim the second spot in the overall rankings. Sakai also finished third in the averages on that tour (excluding one player with minimal appearances) to highlight a solid enough level of play and some consistency. Some other events were played - he played some of the Steel Darts Japan circuit, making one final, while he was able to make a run all the way to the semi finals of the Asian Championship, putting up a good result and performance in the quarters against Man Lok Leung prior to a tight loss to Lourence Ilagan. He's been around for a little while, having occasional appearances in my database in 2023 and 2024 from the Asian Tour, including a previous Asian Championship semi final run where he went out to eventual winner Haruki Muramatsu, but this looks to be a big jump in performance and results, and how he takes to the big stage will be somewhat of an unanswered question.

Chisnall has had, to put it bluntly, a really poor season. It doesn't feel that long ago that he was the number 1 seed for Euro Tour events on a regular basis, now he's at the level where he didn't even qualify for the Grand Prix, ending a string of fourteen consecutive appearances. What's happening? If we look at the floor, he's just losing too early too often. He had just three "plain" board wins, then a singular quarter, semi, and then the one final where Krzysztof Ratajski would run out an easy enough winner. For someone who had eight finals at this level in the previous two years, four of which were won, that's a heck of a drop off. Europe wasn't much better - he started with a quarter final (beating Pietreczko and Edhouse then running into Littler) and ended with the same (beating Clemens and Evans prior to losing a deciding leg to Ratajski), but in between there was not much of anything - four wins as the seeded player before a third round loss, then eight second round losses. This did not help his TV chances really. He lost his opening Masters game to Menzies, only just got past Ricky Evans in the UK Open before losing to Ratajski again, at Blackpool he lost an opening game to de Decker, the same happened at Dortmund to Schindler after only just qualifying in the first place, as stated he didn't qualify for Leicester, didn't qualify for the Grand Slam, and Ryan Joyce won their first round tie at the PC Finals. I don't know if this is just a complete loss of form, an undisclosed injury, something off the oche, not sure. All I know is right now, if you are forced to face a seed in this event, Dave would be in more or less everyone's top three picks of who you'd want.

Fallon is making a sixth appearance here, but it's now six years removed from when she was making all the headlines, and since then she's had four first round defeats - winning a set every time, but not truly threatening to repeat the successes of the 2020 event. What's she done this year? Well it's been the Women's Series and not a lot else really. There, Sherrock won one event early over Greaves, and one mid season over Ashton, and would add another six finals, pushing Greaves close in a couple of them but losing to Beau five times and Kirsi Viinikainen on the other occasion. This was still enough for a (distant) second place in the rankings and an Ally Pally return. In other events, Fallon did play the World Masters, losing in the groups to Andreas Harrysson and Darren Beveridge, neither of which is unreasonable, did qualify for the Matchplay, where maybe the best chance she'd have to reclaim the title was lost in the final against Lisa Ashton. Fallon did try Q-School, and got through stage 1, not being without chances in stage 2 but not getting the tour card, and she did try the first Challenge Tour weekend, not being able to progress beyond the last 64. Not playing WDF events is no surprise, but I feel it would be useful if she did play some, if only to get a bit more winning habit. Similar with the Challenge Tour, I don't think she can really progress as a player with the schedule she's choosing right now. Can she show up and beat Dave? On this form, of course it's possible. Will it happen? Who knows.

Ricardo Pietreczko narrowly missed out on being seeded for this, and I don't think the German can have too many complaints about how things have worked out rather than being a place or two higher up the rankings and having your potential capped knowing you're going to run into a Luke very early on. Pietreczko had a good fourth round run here last year where he got a bit of a surprise win over van Veen and then one over Scott Williams prior to a one sided defeat against Aspinall, but 2025 has been a bit stagnant, not getting that jump into the top 32. Ricardo had a pretty mediocre floor season, making just a sole quarter final back in April, and his three other board wins all preceded that. After that, he got to four board finals in fairly quick succession (obviously losing them all), but the back end of the season has been a disaster with a run of fourteen straight events not getting past the second round, more of which were first round losses than second round losses, a run which dates back to before the Matchplay. The Euro Tour wasn't awful, but was mostly a case of winning the opening game then losing to the seeded player, he did get to a quarter in Rosmalen with a good win over Josh Rock, and followed it up next time out with a win over Schindler, but those would be the only two final day appearances all season. He'd lose his first games at the Masters and UK Open to Jeffrey de Graaf and Madars Razma, so somewhat winnable games, Blackpool he got Dobey which is kind of fair enough, but he dropped enough in the Pro Tour to miss the Grand Prix, and failed to make the Slam either. The other two majors weren't bad though, he booked back to back European Championship quarters with wins over in form Springer and Wattimena before losing to Noppert, and at Minehead he got another couple of wins, with a big seeding upset over Willie O'Connor then edging out Gary Anderson before getting up to Littler. So there's signs of some stage form, just needs to bring it here and tighten up on the lower stages to get the career moving the right way again.

de Sousa is likely to lose his tour card after a very nice run, and will make what could potentially be a final appearance here having not been close to qualifying automatically, but looked somewhat like his previous self in the PDPA qualifier, where he put three really good performances togetther to beat Rusty Jake Rodriguez, Christian Kist and then surviving a comeback and match darts against Andy Boulton to get an eighth appearance here after a year away. Coming through the qualifier was not unexpected, but coming through the way he did perhaps was. After a poor 2024, 2025 was much the same - on the floor Jose was not able to get a single board win, and only managed to get to a board final on four occasions, with overall averages per Dart Connect seeing him not even in the top 128. Sure, some above only played two games, but that is a level that is clearly off the player he used to be - or the player that showed up at the last chance saloon. The European Tour didn't see him all year, with Jose only getting three wins all season, not even getting to the final qualifying round once. This left him clearly out of Dortmund, and clearly some way off the Players Championship Finals (and obviously the hard ones like the Matchplay). The Slam qualifier saw him lose to Michael Smith, he lost his first game at the Masters to Andy Baetens, but he did get what might have been his best result at the UK Open, where he beat Jimmy van Schie a bit out of nowhere, and gave Ross Smith a bit of a run for his money in the last 64. He's been a fantastic player, the qualifier shows that maybe there's a bit still in the tank.

I think you can make some arguments against every seed here. Harrysson's peak game is as good as anyone's and he wouldn't need to sustain it for too long to get up 2-0 in sets and really put the cat amongst the pigeons, but I think Ross will have the class to hold on. Tricole might be the weakest player on the seeded half of the draw and Sakai doesn't look awful, but I think the big stage experience will see him come through as I think Motomu won't score heavy enough to deny Thibault the chances he needs. Chizzy's so hard to pick, and if Fallon can put in a performance near to her best then another win on this stage isn't out of the question, I just think that it'll take too many things to fall in Sherrock's favour for Dave to lose it. Meanwhile, if the qualifier was not just a one day thing for Jose, he absolutely has enough to beat Ricardo, but the German's shown enough for me to be confident in his ability to advance. Smith should dismantle Tricole with ease, while Pietreczko is at the level that, while he probably doesn't have it all his own way, he ought to have enough to knock Chisnall out. That puts Ross against Ricardo - I just need to look at the overall numbers here. Smith is the class player in this section, and while the gap is not insurmountable, he should win this. Winner - Ross Smith