Richard Veenstra (#49 FRH, 89.34 (#51), 385-371 (50.93%, #56))
Alexis Toylo (#166 FRH, 84.31 (#89), 136-111 (55.06%, #24))
Pretty quiet year for Krzysztof, but still one in which he's holding his own in the top 32, although it doesn't look like he'll get back to the top 16 levels he was at two or three years ago, it doesn't look like he's going anywhere immediately. Ratajski finished just outside the top 20 in Pro Tour averages, and while he wouldn't be able to make a final this season, it was a season of solid accumulation, peaking with a couple of semi finals and a couple of quarter finals, so still showing the ability to threaten a deep run here ant there. The European Tour wasn't quite so great, as Krzysztof had his worst season in more than half a decade, only making the final day on two occasions as he's dropped down the rankings causing him to enter at the first round stage. TV wasn't terrible, with a win at the UK Open over Adam Gawlas, only to lose to Mervyn King at the next stage, and he got a key Matchplay win over Chizzy before ending a distant second best to Andrew Gilding. He's dropped far enough down that he then didn't qualify for the Grand Prix, nor did he make the Euros or the Slam, while the PC Finals was about par for the course with a win over Razma but losing a decider to Damon Heta. It's steady, but results are kind of needed fairly soon one way or another.
Richard's had a bit of a quieter 2024 after making a big impression in 2023, but still makes it here pretty comfortably after a solid season. On the floor, Veenstra made just the single quarter final, but made a fair few board finals, doing enough throughout the year to comfortably qualify for Minehead, albeit not with the highest seed he could get, resulting in running into Mike de Decker in the opening round. That would be one of two TV appearances for Veenstra, just about getting a bye to round three of the UK Open, where Richard defeated Owen Roelofs to get into the bag with the big boys, where he'd coincidentally get Mike de Decker as well and drop out. The Euro Tour wasn't too bad, Veenstra qualifying for six events, and he would generally lose to the seed - just having the one first round loss, but countering that with one passage to the third round when he beat Dave Chisnall in Riesa. That was nearly enough to make a European Championship debut, but not quite. Everything's solidly in the top 64, which is where most of us thought he would be, but will need a little bit more to push up to the top 32.
Finally we have Toylo, who will make a debut after an excellent Asian Tour season which saw the Philippines player top the table by a fairly comfortable margin, ending up in the top five (after adding some minimum participation criteria) in the averages, booking his spot here for a first go. On that Asian Tour, Alexis won the first two events of the season, and continued a red hot start by getting up to five total titles (and two more finals) in the first half of the season. He wasn't able to do a huge amount in the second half, missing one of the weekends, but enough points were in the bag to claim the overall title. This got him into the Asian Championship as the top seed, where he'd advance through the groups, but fall to Lee Lok Yin at the quarter final stages. This form allowed him to make a World Cup debut, but that would end in disappointment with a very one sided winner takes all game against Belgium in the group stages. Another great find from the area, let's see what he can do on the biggest stage of all.
It's a good season for Alexis, but Veenstra looks like he'll be a bit too classy, with Toylo only projecting around 20% to win the game. Ratajski is that little bit better again, but not overwhelmingly, with the Dutchman having more than a one in three shot. It's not 40% though.
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