Well that shakes things up

To go from having your European Championship qualification in the balance to binking, take a bow Ricardo. That's completely changed the lineup for that event (at least in terms of seedings), it's shaken up the Slam, Pietreczko nicking into the 14th spot with only two to be decided at the expense of Ratajski, it's also seen him likely lock up Matchplay and Grand Prix qualification next time around and move up to #35 in the FRH rankings. Not someone we had pegged to win at this level, but we did have him installed at #8 on our "next to win a Pro Tour title" list, and he's jumped that list completely. Nice job. It gives him a tasty tie against Ross Smith with a potential second round game against Michael van Gerwen to follow (with the draw for the European Championship of course having been finalised), that should be a fun one. New FRH rankings:

1 Michael Smith

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Nathan Aspinall

5 Gerwyn Price

6 Jonny Clayton

7 Peter Wright

8 Dave Chisnall

9 Joe Cullen

10 Dirk van Duijvenbode

11 Rob Cross

12 Danny Noppert

13 Damon Heta

14 Dimitri van den Bergh

15 Andrew Gilding

16 Ross Smith

17 Ryan Searle

18 Chris Dobey

19 Josh Rock

20 Martin Schindler

Wright's final doesn't really do much apart from give him a bit of breathing room from the onrushing Chisnall, indeed apart from Pietreczko and the rise of Jules van Dongen and George Killington into the top 90, there's really not much movement at all.

We're coming up to a run of four Pro Tours starting on Wednesday, which accounts for two thirds of the remaining Pro Tour money ahead of the World Championship. I'd guess that £25k is what's going to be needed to be really safe, so quite a bit of work to do for a lot of players in the upcoming days. Stay tuned.