Ricardo Pietreczko (#30 FRH, 88.38 (#61), 406-438 (48.10%, #78))
Xiao Chen Zong (#129 FRH, 81.14 (#94), 9-11 (45.00%, #88))
It has been a year of consolidation for Gian, after a hype train last year which was crudely derailed by a shocking first round loss to Man Lok Leung. Still looking for a first PDC title at senior level, he did go one better in the world youth final, albeit he would be the first to say he was fortunate as anything to get the win over Jurjen van der Velde. What of the senior circuit? The floor has been steady enough - a couple of semi finals, a quarter final, maybe he would have liked more having made a final the last two seasons, but it was consistent decent runs as he did get seven board wins behind those deeper runs. On the European Tour, he was extremely close to getting that elusive first title, missing one match dart at the bull to defeat van Gerwen, but coming up just short, having come through a relatively hard path of Barry, Noppert, Nijman and Searle. Gian claimed two Development Tour titles and made another two finals before his ranking got too high for him to continue to play in those, while he's got to every TV event having made debuts in the tricky ones. He got wins over Hendo, Hempel and Usher to reach round six of the UK Open, where he'd lose by just the odd break to Damon Heta, at Blackpool he would lose a deciding leg to Rob Cross but then be well outclassed by Ross Smith at the Grand Prix. Gian would be the first of Ritchie Edhouse's victims as he went on to claim the European Championship, but in his best appearance he'd sweep a Grand Slam group of death (Bunting, Nijman, Rock) and then slaughter Ryan Joyce with a 106 average, and push Gary Anderson all the way, the Flying Scotsman denying us a longer format repeat of last year's world youth against Littler. Gian would finish the season with a 104 average but lose 6-5 at Minehead to Scott Williams, so I think this season has mostly been about gaining a lot of TV experience and then probably look to 2025 to make steps towards the top 16, somewhere his level of talent is well capable of getting to.
On the other hand, Ricardo has had a real up and down season. He finishes right near the top of the Pro Tour rankings for the second straight year, but fell out of the seedings late and will enter in the first round as a result. Particularly in the early part of the season, Ricardo was really struggling for form and not pushing on following his European Tour win in the slightest - he ended up outside the top 100 in the Pro Tour averages, not having the worst start in terms of results as he did get a win in the first seven events, but would then go on a sixteen-event run where he won just three matches. While he did pick up a little bit towards the end as his play improved, indeed beating Gian to win one of only two boards of the year (the first being the very first event of the year, and nobody he beat made the worlds), it was not enough to reach Minehead. The European Tour kind of mirrored that story - seeded for pretty much every event, he briefly threatened to go back to back with an opening semi final run, although helped by top seeds in the section Chisnall and van Gerwen being knocked out before he could play them, he'd do relatively little until a return to Belgium where he made the final pretty much from nowhere - beating Gilding, Noppert, van Duijvenbode and Humphries, just running out of steam against Chizzy in the final. TV more or less followed the same script - he got the win he should have done at the UK Open against a Riley's qualifier but then lost in round four heavily to Mervyn King, drew Humphries at Blackpool so couldn't do much about that, then showed some signs of improvement by nicking a win over Barney at Leicester (before hitting Humphries again) and then making a best TV run to the quarters at Dortmund, beating Heta and Gilding before losing out to Danny Noppert. With no Grand Slam or Players Championship Finals, there's a bit of a lack of recent form to evaluate, but it at least looks like he's picking up in the second half after a pretty bad run up to the summer.
Zong will make a fourth appearance here, and is still looking for a first win, the closest he got to that was a 3-2 loss to the late Kyle Anderson five years ago, while this time last year he picked up just three legs in a straight sets defeat to Mickey Mansell. He's mostly played in the Chinese domestic circuit, winning their championship dropping just a solitary set in the knockout stages, his average not dropping below 80 which can be tough if playing limited opposition. There is also something called the China Premier League, which seemingly has PDC backing, that looked to be a series of knockouts and Zong won four out of seven events, as well as the playoffs where he dropped just four legs on the way to the title - with the games being first to ten and eleven respectively, so a fairly dominant display domestically. What we didn't see was an appearance in the Asian Championship - I would guess he did enough to qualify if he wanted to play, as his Asian Tour record wasn't terrible, not playing every event but reaching a quarter final and a semi final, but it wasn't to be I guess. He was additionally one half of the Chinese team at the World Cup, where they defeated Guyana but Austria were way too strong for either of them.
Data on Zong is too limited to use as a prediction, but with Ricardo having turned form around, I can't see the German having too many problems getting to round two, although the qualifier certainly has a peak game where he could rattle off a set, and do that early them maybe doubts might set in. A year long projection between van Veen and Pietreczko puts the seed at about a 70/30 advantage, but as stated, Ricardo has pulled his form together somewhat so that is probably an overestimate of Gian's chances, although there's not a world where I wouldn't be calling him a solid favourite.
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