Nick Kenny (#73 FRH, 87.16 (#75), 281-302 (48.20%, #77))
Stowe Buntz (#87 FRH, 85.70 (#81), 100-90 (52.62%, #39))
Stowe Buntz (#87 FRH, 85.70 (#81), 100-90 (52.62%, #39))
Showing no particular signs of slowing down, even into his late 50's, Barney remains a seeded player here, albeit as the last seed. His 2024 has pretty much been a case of holding on and doing just about enough to stay at that level, and right on the fringes of the top 32 seem pretty much where he's at. He showed pretty early in the season that he still has enough to compete at the top level with a Pro Tour win on the third weekend - after a solid start with two quarter finals and a board win in the first four events, RvB ran the table ending with wins over Gary Anderson and Stephen Bunting, which looks better now than it did at the time. He would add another couple of semi finals after that, but the peak of the season definitely looks like the early stages. van Barneveld has benefitted from the new Euro Tour qualification rules, playing every event but only getting to the final day on three occasions with just a solitary semi final, while similarly TV was almost a total loss, only getting the single win of the year at the Players Championship Finals over Chris Landman. He'd lose to Humphries there, but earlier would have lost to Luke Woodhouse at the UK Open, Jonny Clayton in Blackpool, Pietreczko in Leicester and Searle in Dortmund, failing to make the Grand Prix. It's kind of hard to see how this isn't a peak going forward for Raymond - there's still a player there, but it doesn't seem to be the level of player that can mix it consistently with those ranked above him.
Interesting year for Kenny. Nick is back for a third visit here after a couple of years' absence, and a first visit where he's qualified by right, his previous appearances both having come through winning in the PDPA qualifier, not that there's anything wrong with that. Nick's in the second year of a card and will need to make the last 32 to stand any chance of keeping it, but in terms of what he's done this year it's been a bit of a struggle, but just doing enough to give himself a chance. On the floor, Nick opened well with a quarter final, but it would take until event 17 before he'd progress past a board final, and that was against fairly weak opposition, but he did a decent enough job of picking up the grands for winning any game, indeed he'd win his first game more often than not, and it was enough to nearly get him into the Players Championship Finals - which got upgraded into a spot after the Dom Taylor thing, in a straight swap he'd play Michael Smith and nearly cause an upset, losing 6-5 where I believe he had match darts. He'd need to augment those Pro Tour earnings from Europe, which he did, albeit in an odd manner where he played one event and made a quarter final - beating Klaasen, Ross Smith and then Ricardo Pietreczko, losing in a decent game to Daryl Gurney. It wasn't much, but it was enough. Only other appearance of note was the UK Open, here Nick got a little bit of a run going, starting in round two and taking out Callum Goffin then Matt Campbell in a decider to get into the hat with the big boys, and he'd lose 10-4 to Dave Chisnall. Not the worst year, but I think looking at all the metrics that if he were to hold his card, it'd be fortunate.
Stowe is back for a second attempt, having made his debut here twelve months ago, opening up the proceedings and taking a leg off Kevin Doets in every set but losing 3-0. He returns through the CDC system - finishing third in the points narrowly behind Leonard Gates and Jim Long, Gates winning one of the knockouts presumably took precedence or created an extra spot, so he's back. On that tour, Buntz took down two titles, beating Jacob Taylor and Dave Cameron in the finals, and would make an additional two finals to make for a steady set of results. He nearly won his ticket outright, as well as a Grand Slam return, in the North American Championship, but Matt Campbell would defeat him in the final, and he'd have good runs in the other CDC knockout events, making the semis in both the Cross Border Challenge and Continental Cup. Stowe also briefly popped up on our radar fairly recently by taking down the Gibraltar Open in the WDF system - what he was doing there, I don't know, presumably he was coming off or leading up to a Modus event, but there were some good games against mixed opposition, so is at least in recent winning mentality.
The opening game seems genuinely open. Nick seems better, but at this sort of level he seems nothing special and is probably one of the kinder draws Stowe could have got and it feels about a 60/40 sort of matchup. Barney will like this one, but whoever comes through ought to be a live dog, with somewhere I would guess around a one in three to one in four shot, leaning towards the more likely outcome if it's Kenny to come through. It's basically a final for both given it'd almost certainly be Humphries up in the next round so expect everyone to leave everything on the oche in that one.
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