Wessel Nijman (#41 FRH, 93.66 (#10), 680-514 (56.95%, #8))
Cameron Carolissen (#167 FRH, no data)
What on earth has been going on with Joe this season? We're a year removed from a season where he made two major semi finals, and two years from when he very nearly won the Premier League, but in 2024 he's not even looked like a top 32 quality of player, and ignoring the standard of play, it's worrisome that he's made weird media comments about the locations of tournaments, leaving it open as to just how engaged he is with the game right now. On the floor, Cullen barely scrapes into the top 100 (!) of Pro Tour averages, with one final to his credit but only a single board win beyond that, going out in the first round in more than half the events, frankly to people he should easily be beating most of the time. The European Tour was similarly indifferent, getting to one final in Austria where he did play alright with wins over Chisnall, van Veen and Bunting, but how he got four legs in the final given the gulf in averages between himself and Littler, I'm not sure. Joe didn't make a single final session apart from that one, and only made the third round three times, twice beating seeds on the weaker end of the scale and once where he was the seed himself. Cullen's had his moments on TV, not at Minehead where he lost his first game to Michael Smith early and Dave Chisnall late (only just sneaking into the PC finals field in the first place), but elsewhere he got a fortunate draw at the Matchplay and got the win over Brendan Dolan, while at the Grand Prix he did beat Chris Dobey to be fair, following up with a win over Daryl Gurney to reach the quarters where he would fall to Dimitri van den Bergh. The only remaining tournaments were the Euros, where he played poorly in defeat to Danny Noppert, and the Grand Slam where he didn't qualify, losing to Jeffrey de Zwaan. He's currently outside of the Matchplay positions so needs something to spark a turnaround, and fast.
The opposite can be said of Wessel Nijman, who has had a spectacular season, having won a card for this year through 2023's Development Tour. His time away from the game has been well documented and we won't revisit it, but he's made up for lost time in 2024 in some fashion, placing himself as probably the single player in the first round seeds won't want to face. Sticking with the Dev Tour first, he won that by a country mile, finishing nearly ten grand ahead of second place, getting seven tournament victories which in a single season is incredible. The only weird thing is that he didn't do more in the world youth - losing to Dylan Slevin in the knockout stages. On the senior circuit, Nijman first threatened a breakthrough with a floor final run in July, losing to Littler there but beating the likes of van Veen, Heta and Anderson along the way, before going one better in October, claiming a first senior title over Stephen Bunting, getting the scalps of Ando (again), Searle and Ratajski in that one. After that win he won his board on four out of six events and is looking a lock to make big major debuts in 2025. On the Euro Tour, Wessel made four events, never losing his opening match and making a best run in Hungary to the quarter finals, nothing spectacular yet, but his Pro Tour rank should get him into everything in '25 (heck, he's close to being seeded), so with the amount of opportunities he should get going forward, you have to think if he can maintain his level of play, a final (or a bink) at that level is coming. TV's been slower progress to be fair, at the UK Open he got a couple of wins over Niels Zonneveld and a qualifier before losing out to Mike de Decker, while a one sided defeat to another Belgian in Kim Huybrechts came as a shock at the Players Championship Finals. Nijman winning the Dev Tour did get him into the Slam, where he was dealt a shocker of a group, losing all three matches but averaging over 105 in every single one. The kid is a legitimate danger to go very deep here.
Cameron will make his return here after a four year absence, back in 2021 he got a first round bye due to people having colds, but would win a set in the second round to Danny Noppert, averaging a relatively respectable 82 in that one. He won the African qualifier to get here, getting a last leg win in Nairobi against a decent Kenyan opponent and a partisan crowd, dodging a match dart in the process. He averaged 85 there in that final, but was a bit weaker in the earlier rounds of the qualifier, albeit against worse opponents. Cameron's one of the players for which data is severely limited - there is some sort of PDC-recognised African tour, when I say tour it was pretty much all in South Africa, there Cameron won two and made the final of another three of the total of six events which were played, enough to finish top of the table (just about) as another South African player won three of the events, but seemingly did less in the ones he didn't win. Averages there would again peak at around the mid 80's, but frequently he wasn't even getting that. He did play in the World Cup in what must have been the first year with no Devon Petersen, and perhaps surprisingly South Africa would nick a victory over Switzerland, but fall well short against Northern Ireland.
The first round may be the most one sided of the whole event. Carolissen has done well to get here and at least has the advantage of it not being a debut, but Nijman might well not lose a leg here, such is the level he's playing at. Then against Cullen, his year long percentage looks to be quite good - more than three in four year long, which gets better and better as you go to more form based stats. I doubt even Gilding was this much of a seed vs non seed underdog last season. Wessel's just playing that well, and Joe frankly isn't.
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