Worlds post 4/8 - the Clayton bit

Was 2025 the second year of the Ferret? Quite possibly. One way or another, it was really damned solid. Jonny really rolled back the years and chucked his name into the pot as a legitimate contender for a Premier League return, with solid results across all levels and solid statistics to back things up. Those sorts of claims ought to be started by talking about TV form, and it was good - albeit a game of two halves. Jonny was a leg away from winning the Masters, having knocked out Littler in the quarters, he came from 5-2 down in sets to force Humphries to a decider, but was not quite able to get over the line and Luke won the title. Three major semi finals followed (along with a final in the World Cup) - stopped by Littler twice in the UK Open and the Grand Prix, and only losing to Wade in the Matchplay in overtime. After that however, things fell of a cliff with a first round loss to Searle in Dortmund, a failure to get out of a group which didn't seem that hard in the Slam, and then a first round loss to James Hurrell in the Players Championship Finals. Not really the trend you would like to see. Lower levels were generally decent - he added another European Tour title to his name in Rosmalen, notably beating Humphries in the semi final and having a fairly tough path throughout, and he would also pick up a Pro Tour title in April, with a dominant display over Dominik Gruellich in the final. Clayton would add a further final later in the season which he would lose to Stephen Bunting, and showed decent consistency with five other last eight runs, including two late in the season, where while it looked like his TV form was tailing off, his general form seemed alright. A seeding of five seems a fair bit high, but the results don't lie and the numbers aren't that far off things, so it really wouldn't surprise me if he was able to make a solid run here.

Adam Lipscombe is a new tour card holder who, at least according to Wiki, needed snookers to get into stage two of Q-School, but having got them, did more than enough to qualify on points for a tour card, and has made an extremely solid start to his PDC career to qualify here, having played whatever an ADC Global Championship is, losing out to known name Devon Petersen in the final of that event. Adam is here pretty much entirely on account of winnings on the Pro Tour - getting in as one of the last few players, he wasn't able to get anything going on the European Tour, only getting to the final round once (where he obviously lost), so it was all on the floor, where he was a surprise early finalist, beating Damon Heta, Dirk van Duijvenbode and otherwise a generally solid field to get through to Gary Anderson, where he kept things somewhat close early but fell away to a moderately one-sided defeat. Lipscombe would add a quarter final soon after, but a string of first and second round defeats, only getting to a board final twice (at least in the last five events for form purposes) was not ideal.  Adam was able to win through three rounds of the UK Open, defeating a qualifier then two seasoned opponents in Klaasen and White before perhaps surprisingly losing out to Jurjen van der Velde in round four, and he also had a very good result at the Minehead return, knocking out dangerous opponents in Menzies and Brooks prior to missing a huge chance with many missed match darts against Daryl Gurney to reach the quarter finals. That much of the good form was early is not ideal, but having seen recent flashes on TV and recently, and both combined, shows he's not going to be a walkover.

Dom Taylor's a name who has been around for a while, and it's kind of both a surprise and not a surprise that his will be a debut campaign, for reasons that will just be left described as "reasons" that most already know and anyone can find out about. This year saw Taylor end up solidly in the top half of the Pro Tour rankings, following a relatively steady campaign which saw an explosive start back on the tour with two semi finals in the first eight events, although both these results and his next best result of a quarter final took place outside of the UK where the field is typically a tad weaker. These would be enough for Dom to make it to Minehead recently, but there he would narrowly lose to Andrew Gilding in the opening round. That needed to be enough on its own - Taylor had a disastrous time on the European Tour, failing to qualify for a single event, only getting to the final round of qualifying twice, and nearly half the time he was losing to players he could beat - subjectively, you could say more, but then we start getting into the realms of opinions. There's little else to talk about - he played the UK Open and beat Steve Lennon in a decider, only to then lose a decider to Cameron Menzies in the third round. Taylor is an extremely dangerous proposition, the numbers don't lie, the concerns are lack of stage experience and maybe a trailing off in form in the second half of the year. But if he shows up, watch out.

Dom's opponent will be Oskar Lukasiak, a new tour card holder from twelve months ago, who booked his place at the biggest event on the calendar through the Nordic/Baltic tour, ending in a tie for second on that ranking with Teemu Harju, but avoiding any hilarity after Harju grabbed the Nordic regional championship, letting Oskar claim the second spot on his own. On that circuit, he won the first event in Riga over Andreas Harrysson, and while he would not be able to get a second title, he would reach three further finals throughout the season (losing to Harrysson on every occasion), which'd give him enough to make his debut on this stage. A relative veteran having played in the BDO World Masters in the noughties, it's only just in this season that he's really made progression to play at the highest level on a regular occasion after finishing high on the points tally to claim his card. Oskar has found the step up to this level tough - getting to one early board final mainly due to opposition woes would be his peak, he would only win maybe half a dozen games for the rest of the season, nicking a couple of alright results but generally only because he ran into players who were equally as far down the PDC food chain as he was. He didn't make the Euro Tour all year, would get out of his Masters group but then lose to Niels Zonneveld, and be heavily routed by Thomas Lovely in his first UK Open game. It feels like he is a much better player than the numbers and results suggest, but against a tough first round opponent, it's hard to make any sort of reasonable claim that this might be close.

Michael it seems, per what I've caught of recent interviews, seems to have been working through some injuries which certainly haven't helped his game, but even taking that into consideration, to see him slide as he has is pretty darned shocking, and unthinkable if you roll the clock back two years to when he was defending his world title. This season's seen some ups and downs and some sparks of possible returns to form, but at the same time it's shown a lot of average stuff. When he has been able to get on TV, he's not been too bad - making a pair of quarter finals, first at the UK Open where he avenged his worlds loss to Kevin Doets, got through a close one with Razma before thumping a very poor Dimitri, then lost a narrow one to possible opponent here Jonny Clayton. Later, having qualified for the Slam, he got out of a group containing Humphries and Aspinall then beat Chris Dobey in the knockout stages, before being a distant second best to Humphries. Otherwise, he didn't qualify for events you'd think he would (Matchplay, Grand Prix, Euro Champs) or was out early (Noppert in the Masters, Schindler in the PC Finals). He's a bit off the pace in the Pro Tour rankings, and he's not really showing signs of getting back - he missed the last four Euro Tours and only made one quarter final all year (where he did beat Humphries to be fair), while on the floor it was a rollercoaster - six out of eight first round losses to start, then an alright spell of eight where he got to a quarter and two semis, but ended with seven first round defeats in the last ten. He's clearly not forgotten how to play the game, he just needs to get properly healthy, then do something like bink a Pro Tour to get back up the rankings, into Euro Tours more easily, and back in all the majors. Which is not a big ask for someone with the talent he has.

His opening opponent will be Lisa Ashton, a four time Lakeside champion (although not since 2018 it should be said), who's been here on four previous occasions, not looking bad in any of them and getting to a deciding set twice, but still looking for a first win. Lisa is here having won the World Matchplay, with a big upset over Beau Greaves in the semi finals before a tight win over Fallon Sherrock in the final. That locked up the spot, but the former card holder (let's not forget that) would have been fine through the Women's Series rankings had she not picked up the title in Blackpool. On that series, Lisa won the opening event over debutant this year Gemma Hayter, and would reach four further finals, only really getting close to a win in the last one of those four, but it would be enough to lock up third place on the rankings. That Matchplay win got Lisa into the Grand Slam - not much was expected with a draw into a group of death including the deadly trio of young players in Rock, Nijman and van Veen, but she would push Gian to a deciding leg in the opening game, but then not pick up a leg in the other two matches. She did take up the World Masters invite, but couldn't get out of a group containing Stephen Burton and Aden Kirk. It would have been good if we had seen her try Q-School and play some Challenge Tour, but that didn't happen, and she seems to have not looked to do any of the WDF circuit either. Can still certainly be a dangerous player capable of winning 2-3 legs rapidly, but over a five set match it's probably too much of an ask.

Zonneveld is a developing player who was in the fringes of the top 64 for some time, but is starting to make a move up towards the top 32 following on from a breakthrough 2024, and doing more than consolidating this year, ending as the third player in the Pro Tour rankings and getting seeded frequently for those events. On the floor, Niels has looked remarkably consistent, not dropping many opening games and going deep frequently, with two quarter finals, three semi finals, as well as a debut final in Hildesheim, where he got what looked like a very decent opponent in terms of being able to claim a first title in Bialecki, but it would be the Pole that would come out a narrow 8-6 victor. Niels couldn't repeat his late season Euro Tour semi final, but was able to get into six events, getting to the third round on a couple of occasions with wins over Wade and Aspinall, but it wasn't enough to allow him to qualify for the tough majors, although it must have been fairly close and he's looking good at the moment to make them in 2026, which'll allow for a further push up the rankings. He'd have liked to have done a bit more in the Minehead events, losing out to Robert Owen and Nick Kenny in close ties, while Wattimena did for him at the Masters which I guess is fair enough given his form. He's never done a great deal here, but has got a decent chance of rectifying that record this year.

Haupai Puha was one of five players to win their spot here through the PDPA qualifier, and will make his third appearance here having previously won through the DPNZ rankings and the Oceanic Masters, and will be hoping for a first win, although losing his tour card looks virtually certain having won it in 2024 to become the first New Zealander to do so. In that qualifier, Hopes comfortably defeated Rhys Griffin and Greg Ritchie, but was forced all the way by Brett Claydon, needing to win the last five legs to come from behind, the final one being a missed double party but Puha finally hit for a huge 24 darter. On the tour, it's been a fair bit of a struggle and he does look a touch out of his depth, with recent form not being kind, not having reached a board final since before the Matchplay, and only doing so all season three times, pushing through to a board win once with a couple of good wins over Cross and Edhouse, averaging over a ton twice in that event to show what he can do at his best, but generally the averaging has been in the eighties, occasionally the low nineties, which typically isn't enough at this level. He did play the Masters but lost out to Darius Labanauskas in the group stages, and had a bit of a cameo at the UK Open to reach the last 64, beating Aden Kirk and Christian Kist to get there, but would lose a winnable game against Dylan Slevin 10-7. These two years will have been a good learning experience, and at 40 you feel this won't be a last hurrah by any means, but this is not an easy draw despite missing the true seeded players.

Can't see any of the seeds having any problems in round one. Lipscombe against any of the other three might have had a puncher's chance but getting Clayton is a tough one. In round two, I could easily see the actual seeds being pushed hard - Taylor is a legitimate contender, and I think with how things are trending, Zonneveld could easily break new ground on this stage and turn Smith over, he feels like a very similar sort of player in career trajectory to Kevin Doets who did the same thing twelve months ago. Tight ones to call, but I think Clayton will just have enough and then face probably an easier opponent either way in round three and come through. Winner - Jonny Clayton

Ross will make a ninth appearance here, and has a fairly underwhelming record on this stage, having not advanced beyond round three and surprisingly losing his opening game to Paolo Nebrida twelve months ago. This season has been alright in terms of numbers, but in terms of results it's been somewhat hit and miss. The best hits were on the floor, where Smith picked up a pair of Pro Tour titles - the first being a whitewash victory over Brendan Dolan, the second being a much tighter deciding leg win over Josh Rock. He was there or there abouts a lot, reaching the last eight or further on eight more occasions, which gave him a really strong seeding for the Players Championship Finals of 4 - although the upshot is that he would have faced Niko Springer, beat the alternate Meikle, then got Luke Littler so the seeding counted for little. Smith made a third Euro Tour final in Austria, but was never really close to defeating Martin Schindler once he got there and the path he had to reach that final was moderately generous, but the overall start to the tour was red hot, making the final session in four of the first five events, only to tail off for the remainder and be an even split of lose first game or lose second game. On the telly, Smith has struggled to get too much done, drawing and losing to Heta in the Masters, taking de Sousa out of the UK Open prior to going all the way with Josh Rock who'd win the deciding leg. He'd get Rock again and lose again in Blackpool, disappoint in Leicester losing to Daryl Gurney, while Gurney would beat him again in the last sixteen in Dortmund before not qualifying for the Grand Slam despite his two floor titles. Maybe his best performance was in the World Series finals, where he only just lost 10-8 to Littler but put up some huge numbers in the process. Very strong player and I don't think he can have any complaints about this section of the draw.

Harrysson is an extremely dangerous player on his day, who's played in the BDO/WDF worlds a couple of times, but will make his PDC debut at the age of 50 having won the Nordic and Baltic tour by a good distance from Teemu Harju and Oskar Lukasiak. Andreas, who many tipped to win a card at the start of the year, missed out on leg difference, so has had to make do with the relatively lucrative non card holder opportunities this year. On that Nordic tour, he won four events, doing the double in Reykjavik, and made another two finals to easily finish top of the table. He'd also make one Euro Tour through the qualifiers held on those weekends, beating former world champions in Michael Smith and Raymond van Barneveld prior to a last sixteen loss to Damon Heta. Harrysson had some moderate success on the Challenge Tour, not making a final but getting towards the business end on a few occasions, which got him high enough the rankings to get some occasional Pro Tour call ups. There, Harrysson was able to pick up three board wins on limited opportunities - none of these saw him face anyone truly difficult, but you can only beat who's in front of you to be fair. He'd play the World Masters, winning his group but losing in the first knockout round to Martin Lukeman, and he'd get past former card holder Scott Baker in the UK Open to cash before losing to Dominik Gruellich. Those who've seen him on the Super Series, amongst other events, know what he's capable of doing, particularly in short spells, so to see him come out of the blocks and put Smith in a hole would not be a surprise.

Tricole qualifies for his third PDC world championship having won a regional qualifier two years ago and finished mid table on the Pro Tour ranks last year, and it's that second route that sees him return looking for a third straight year where he at least wins his opening match, doing so first up in a gruelling tie with Joe Comito last year to see who got fed to Humphries, where Thibault didn't win a leg. 2025 has been OK in terms of results, maybe not so much in terms of statistics, but he's never seemed like a huge power scorer, more one that crafts chances and takes what he is given. Tricole would get to two quarter finals on the floor, but those were mainly down to good draws with the only really hard opponent he defeated on those runs being, ironically, Ross Smith, and beyond those two events, there would only be four board finals, none of which he would be able to convert. The Euro Tour was a fair bit better however, where he got to four events and picked up four wins - three of them being against Michael Smith, Jermaine Wattimena and Stephen Bunting, highlighting his ability to win by any means necessary, the last two being deciding legs where he was averaging less than his opponent. He couldn't get anything going in either the Masters or the UK Open, the latter one which he might want back where he lost comfortably to qualifier Tom Sykes, and he wasn't close to qualifying for anything else, maybe the closest being a semi final loss in a deciding leg in the Slam qualifier to Lukas Wenig. The numbers are not convincing, but that is not always everything.

Motomu will make a debut here after a breakout season on the Asian Tour. There, the Japanese player would be able to win four events - one on home soil, a brace in Mongolia and the last one in Singapore, adding a couple of finals along the way. He was a bit behind overall tour winner Alexis Toylo, but comfortably ahead of Lourence Ilagan to claim the second spot in the overall rankings. Sakai also finished third in the averages on that tour (excluding one player with minimal appearances) to highlight a solid enough level of play and some consistency. Some other events were played - he played some of the Steel Darts Japan circuit, making one final, while he was able to make a run all the way to the semi finals of the Asian Championship, putting up a good result and performance in the quarters against Man Lok Leung prior to a tight loss to Lourence Ilagan. He's been around for a little while, having occasional appearances in my database in 2023 and 2024 from the Asian Tour, including a previous Asian Championship semi final run where he went out to eventual winner Haruki Muramatsu, but this looks to be a big jump in performance and results, and how he takes to the big stage will be somewhat of an unanswered question.

Chisnall has had, to put it bluntly, a really poor season. It doesn't feel that long ago that he was the number 1 seed for Euro Tour events on a regular basis, now he's at the level where he didn't even qualify for the Grand Prix, ending a string of fourteen consecutive appearances. What's happening? If we look at the floor, he's just losing too early too often. He had just three "plain" board wins, then a singular quarter, semi, and then the one final where Krzysztof Ratajski would run out an easy enough winner. For someone who had eight finals at this level in the previous two years, four of which were won, that's a heck of a drop off. Europe wasn't much better - he started with a quarter final (beating Pietreczko and Edhouse then running into Littler) and ended with the same (beating Clemens and Evans prior to losing a deciding leg to Ratajski), but in between there was not much of anything - four wins as the seeded player before a third round loss, then eight second round losses. This did not help his TV chances really. He lost his opening Masters game to Menzies, only just got past Ricky Evans in the UK Open before losing to Ratajski again, at Blackpool he lost an opening game to de Decker, the same happened at Dortmund to Schindler after only just qualifying in the first place, as stated he didn't qualify for Leicester, didn't qualify for the Grand Slam, and Ryan Joyce won their first round tie at the PC Finals. I don't know if this is just a complete loss of form, an undisclosed injury, something off the oche, not sure. All I know is right now, if you are forced to face a seed in this event, Dave would be in more or less everyone's top three picks of who you'd want.

Fallon is making a sixth appearance here, but it's now six years removed from when she was making all the headlines, and since then she's had four first round defeats - winning a set every time, but not truly threatening to repeat the successes of the 2020 event. What's she done this year? Well it's been the Women's Series and not a lot else really. There, Sherrock won one event early over Greaves, and one mid season over Ashton, and would add another six finals, pushing Greaves close in a couple of them but losing to Beau five times and Kirsi Viinikainen on the other occasion. This was still enough for a (distant) second place in the rankings and an Ally Pally return. In other events, Fallon did play the World Masters, losing in the groups to Andreas Harrysson and Darren Beveridge, neither of which is unreasonable, did qualify for the Matchplay, where maybe the best chance she'd have to reclaim the title was lost in the final against Lisa Ashton. Fallon did try Q-School, and got through stage 1, not being without chances in stage 2 but not getting the tour card, and she did try the first Challenge Tour weekend, not being able to progress beyond the last 64. Not playing WDF events is no surprise, but I feel it would be useful if she did play some, if only to get a bit more winning habit. Similar with the Challenge Tour, I don't think she can really progress as a player with the schedule she's choosing right now. Can she show up and beat Dave? On this form, of course it's possible. Will it happen? Who knows.

Ricardo Pietreczko narrowly missed out on being seeded for this, and I don't think the German can have too many complaints about how things have worked out rather than being a place or two higher up the rankings and having your potential capped knowing you're going to run into a Luke very early on. Pietreczko had a good fourth round run here last year where he got a bit of a surprise win over van Veen and then one over Scott Williams prior to a one sided defeat against Aspinall, but 2025 has been a bit stagnant, not getting that jump into the top 32. Ricardo had a pretty mediocre floor season, making just a sole quarter final back in April, and his three other board wins all preceded that. After that, he got to four board finals in fairly quick succession (obviously losing them all), but the back end of the season has been a disaster with a run of fourteen straight events not getting past the second round, more of which were first round losses than second round losses, a run which dates back to before the Matchplay. The Euro Tour wasn't awful, but was mostly a case of winning the opening game then losing to the seeded player, he did get to a quarter in Rosmalen with a good win over Josh Rock, and followed it up next time out with a win over Schindler, but those would be the only two final day appearances all season. He'd lose his first games at the Masters and UK Open to Jeffrey de Graaf and Madars Razma, so somewhat winnable games, Blackpool he got Dobey which is kind of fair enough, but he dropped enough in the Pro Tour to miss the Grand Prix, and failed to make the Slam either. The other two majors weren't bad though, he booked back to back European Championship quarters with wins over in form Springer and Wattimena before losing to Noppert, and at Minehead he got another couple of wins, with a big seeding upset over Willie O'Connor then edging out Gary Anderson before getting up to Littler. So there's signs of some stage form, just needs to bring it here and tighten up on the lower stages to get the career moving the right way again.

de Sousa is likely to lose his tour card after a very nice run, and will make what could potentially be a final appearance here having not been close to qualifying automatically, but looked somewhat like his previous self in the PDPA qualifier, where he put three really good performances togetther to beat Rusty Jake Rodriguez, Christian Kist and then surviving a comeback and match darts against Andy Boulton to get an eighth appearance here after a year away. Coming through the qualifier was not unexpected, but coming through the way he did perhaps was. After a poor 2024, 2025 was much the same - on the floor Jose was not able to get a single board win, and only managed to get to a board final on four occasions, with overall averages per Dart Connect seeing him not even in the top 128. Sure, some above only played two games, but that is a level that is clearly off the player he used to be - or the player that showed up at the last chance saloon. The European Tour didn't see him all year, with Jose only getting three wins all season, not even getting to the final qualifying round once. This left him clearly out of Dortmund, and clearly some way off the Players Championship Finals (and obviously the hard ones like the Matchplay). The Slam qualifier saw him lose to Michael Smith, he lost his first game at the Masters to Andy Baetens, but he did get what might have been his best result at the UK Open, where he beat Jimmy van Schie a bit out of nowhere, and gave Ross Smith a bit of a run for his money in the last 64. He's been a fantastic player, the qualifier shows that maybe there's a bit still in the tank.

I think you can make some arguments against every seed here. Harrysson's peak game is as good as anyone's and he wouldn't need to sustain it for too long to get up 2-0 in sets and really put the cat amongst the pigeons, but I think Ross will have the class to hold on. Tricole might be the weakest player on the seeded half of the draw and Sakai doesn't look awful, but I think the big stage experience will see him come through as I think Motomu won't score heavy enough to deny Thibault the chances he needs. Chizzy's so hard to pick, and if Fallon can put in a performance near to her best then another win on this stage isn't out of the question, I just think that it'll take too many things to fall in Sherrock's favour for Dave to lose it. Meanwhile, if the qualifier was not just a one day thing for Jose, he absolutely has enough to beat Ricardo, but the German's shown enough for me to be confident in his ability to advance. Smith should dismantle Tricole with ease, while Pietreczko is at the level that, while he probably doesn't have it all his own way, he ought to have enough to knock Chisnall out. That puts Ross against Ricardo - I just need to look at the overall numbers here. Smith is the class player in this section, and while the gap is not insurmountable, he should win this. Winner - Ross Smith

Worlds post 3/8 - the Bunting bit

Feels like it's been a very up and down year for Bunting, who despite having probably the best scoring year of his career, as well as breaking new ground by winning a first and second European Tour title, has not really threatened to take a television title following last season's worlds semi final. Those Euro Tours came in Riesa early in the season and Basel later on, defeating Aspinall and Woodhouse respectively, and were long overdue, and were two of four ranking titles Bunting won this year, picking up a pair of Pro Tour wins as well, those being over Jermaine Wattimena and Jonny Clayton, leaving him fractionally behind Gerwyn Price at the top of the Pro Tour standings. However, TV (outside of a couple of World Series wins) was fairly disappointing, and that's if we ignore a disastrous Premier League return where it took him half the season to even register a single win. Two quarter finals is not the return he would have wanted, narrowly going out to Noppert in the Masters and falling behind early and never recovering against Clayton in Blackpool, and the remainder was worse. Dobey first up at the UK Open is a tough draw, same story in Dortmund, but Noppert again in the second round in Leicester and then Gurney at Minehead are those you'd feel were winnable, and the less said about the Grand Slam the better, finishing with a hat trick of 4-5 defeats in a group you feel he should have easily won, or at least qualified from. A good season lower down, and definitely a good season statistically, but TV form must be a concern.

Bialecki returns after a two year absence for a second crack at this event. There, he lost a narrow opening game against Jim Williams having won the eastern European qualifier, here he is in through the Pro Tour, having finally won a tour card through the Development Tour in 2024. We've seen him for a few years now, notably having a big UK Open run once, but he's adapted to the senior circuit well, getting a strong run of five board wins in seven events early in the season on the Pro Tour to give him a firm foundation in getting here, before surprising pretty much everyone soon after the Matchplay by actually winning one. Wins over Woodhouse, Menzies, van Veen and Noppert prior to taking out Niels Zonneveld in the final show it wasn't a cakewalk. Later results would see form tail off a tad, and he had somewhat of a disappointing return in terms of the Euro Tour where he qualified for just a solitary event in which he was comfortably beaten by Pietreczko in the opening round. He did still play the Dev Tour and win the first event, but maybe would have liked more than one final apart from that, while TV wasn't bad - getting a couple of scrappy wins at the UK Open prior to a third round loss to Luke Woodhouse, then notably beating Rob Cross at the Players Championship Finals, before playing alright but just winning the one leg against Price in round two. Still a bit inconsistent, but has certainly shown enough that he's very much someone that is for the now, not just for the future.

Veenstra it feels as if has had a so-so season, never really in danger of not retaining his card having first won it at the start of 2023, but not really showing any sort of progression in terms of pushing up towards the top 32 or threatening to go on some sort of TV run, go deep on the floor, that sort of thing. The Pro Tour was very up and down - three quarter finals is OK I guess, the third being part of a spell in the last eight events where he also won his board three times, but he did end up with an overall losing record in opening round games, the result of which was that he barely qualified for Minehead. Yes, he did beat Wessel Nijman just about, which nobody really saw coming, but then lost in a whitewash to Aspinall in round two. Richard showed a decent record of getting to European Tour events, playing in six across the season, but it should be noted that more than half the time it was as an alternate player having not initially qualified, and he didn't make the final day once with three first round exits and three second round defeats - one of which was when he replaced a seed and didn't even need to win in the first round. Add on losing his opening UK Open game to Mario Vandenbogaerde, and the stage has not been kind to him, and if we look back twelve months his exit from here and the manner of it was not pretty either. Still solid, but it feels as if there's a ceiling as to what he can do on the PDC circuit right now.

Nitin returns here for a fifth attempt, having won the Indian qualifier which never makes any sense to me, but he seemingly did enough. Held over three events, he lost in the final of the first, the quarters of the second but won the last one, but the averages were not pretty in the slightest, only breaking the 80 mark occasionally and only threatening the 90 mark once, albeit two of the three best performances were when it counted, and the strength of the field has probably dragged his numbers down somewhat, given nobody else apart from Kumar even averaged 70 across the events. Kumar's previous attempts have not gone well, he did finally win a set last time out in a not terrible showing against Martin Lukeman, but that's the only one. We did see him at the World Cup, but the Indian team were comfortably beaten in both games, and he has played some Asian Tour, reaching one semi final and getting into the Asian Championship, where he beat one of the lesser known Philippines players but losing to former card holder Christian Perez in a winner takes all clash. He's not completely out of his depth at this level, but I can't think of any draw he could have got where he would be in the same ballpark as his opponent given how the draw works.

Dirk's had a really good season statistically, and is perhaps a tad underrated given his ranking, part of which is down to historic missed time which is only now being rectified. The Pro Tour was pretty darned steady, getting through to one final where he averaged over a ton in a 15 leg clash against Chris Dobey, and made the quarters or better on three other occasions, while on the Euro Tour he got fairly close to winning his first event right at the end of the season, coming out a narrow 8-6 second best against Nathan Aspinall. Dirk had a fairly solid record in Europe outside of that, getting to the final day four times and generally not making a mess of getting up to the seeded player. On TV, it's been hit and miss - he'd want a loss to William Borland at the Masters back, got a real awkward draw in the UK Open against MvG, coming close but not quite getting there, Noppert in the first round at Dortmund isn't the hardest draw but one you think he might have got closer in, while losing to Madars Razma at the PC Finals was not ideal. However, he did come from behind to beat Cross at Blackpool (but would then lose to Andrew Gilding), and made the quarters in Leicester, avenging that defeat to MvG then winning 3-0 against Daryl Gurney, but would then just win one leg in a reverse to Jonny Clayton at the quarter final stage. This is a false ranking, he's better than 29th in the world, only defending first match money here and nothing at the Matchplay or Grand Prix should rectify things.

Andy Baetens came over from the WDF just under two years ago as their world champion and with a lot of expectations as to what he might be able to do in the PDC system, with most observers thinking he's a clear top 64 player, if not higher. To say he's been underwhelming would probably be an understatement, as Baetens did not qualify for the worlds last year and, even with the expanded field, did not qualify outright this year either, leaving him well short of the mark to retain his card which most thought would be a minimum expectation. He did however have a regional qualifier or the PDPA qualifier as backup, and it's the former he won to get here, taking the Netherlands/Belgian qualifier to make his debut on this stage. Andy beat fellow card holder Martijn Dragt, former card holder Ron Meulenkamp and then WDF number 1 Jimmy van Schie to book his place here. As said, he needed this due to poor form on the floor. He made just the single European Tour event, where to be fair he beat Barney then Cross prior to losing to Anderson in a high quality game, but in the Pro Tour he had a peak run of round four, both times in Germany where the field is usually a bit weaker. That left him well short of the PC Finals, but he did get to the main draw of the Masters, although there he drew Littler, but would lose heavily to Cam Crabtree in the UK Open. There's a player in here, we've just not seen it much the last two years.

James Hurrell moved over to the PDC at the same time as Baetens, having also had successes in the WDF system, albeit not to the same extent as Andy. However, he has adapted better, making this event last year where he beat Jim Long for the loss of just one leg prior to a straight sets loss to Michael van Gerwen, and his return here through the Pro Tour sees him what looks like ending up on the right side of the top 64 cutoff to keep his card for 2026. His form has been a bit up and down - only a single European Tour appearance and you can't blame him for losing to Gian van Veen whilst there, and barely having a winning record in first round games on the Pro Tour. He was however able to put some runs together, barely missing out on a final right before the Matchplay, losing out 7-6 to Bradley Brooks in the semis, and in Hildesheim a couple of months later he'd narrowly lose one round earlier, again to eventual champion Joe Cullen. This would be just about enough to book a Minehead slot - earlier in the season he lost his first UK Open game to Darren Beveridge, but in the Players Championship Finals Hurrell would get what could be a couple of key victories, eliminating Jonny Clayton and Luke Woodhouse fairly comfortably prior to going down 10-5 to Chris Dobey. One win here should make his tour card absolutely safe, and he should be favoured to get it.

Stowe Buntz will be back for a third go here, having first broken onto our consciousness just over two years ago with that Grand Slam quarter final, he still seeks his first set win on the Ally Pally stage having been whitewashed by Kevin Doets and Nick Kenny these past two years. Buntz, always an entertaining figure, makes it here being the top ranked player in the CDC rankings after the top American and Canadian were already given their spots. He's a bit fortunate to get the call up, as the qualifying spot only occurred after Matt Campbell was ineligible to take the spot he won from the North American Championship, but he's here. That third place spot was off the back of a solid season where he won four CDC events, and he made a further three finals showing solid form through the season. In the other CDC knockouts, Stowe lost to Canadians every time (Jeff Smith, Matt Campbell, David Cameron), so couldn't book a Slam return or a direct spot here. He did play the US World Series event and looked OK in giving Luke Humphries a decent game, while he has played some WDF events, winning a silver ranked one in Florida in the summer as well as going fairly deep in three others. A steady player with big upside, he won't be without his chances.

Think this one comes down to the seeds, who are the clear best two players in this pod. Bunting and Veenstra probably win the openers in straight sets before Stephen gets to round three likely without much fuss. Dirk could easily be pressured by Baetens, and James could see the same from Buntz, but I think both the first two players make it, and then DvD likely has an easier second round game regardless. The actual winner will likely be tighter than the seedings suggest - Dirk seems to be in the better form and the numbers aren't that dissimilar, I'll take Bunting to move on but this could be legitimately close and an under the radar game of the tournament contender at its best. Winner - Stephen Bunting

Schindler will make his seventh appearance on this stage, looking to be able to make an impression really for the first time, having yet to progress beyond the third round and having lost in straight sets to Callan Rydz in his first game twelve months ago. The season has generally been good, making a decent impression at all levels and rising into the top sixteen prior to this event. On the floor, Schindler won a Pro Tour event for the first time (of course, already having a Euro Tour or two in the bank), winning a one-sided final against Jeffrey de Graaf without having to show too much in terms of scoring power to do so. He'd perhaps liked to have added a bit more, with just another three events where he made the last eight or better, but he made very few early round mistakes to show a lot of consistency to his game. A third Euro Tour title was added in Austria, beating Chris Dobey, Josh Rock then Ross Smith in the final session, which is already a fairly rare feat, and Martin had just the single tournament on that tour where he lost his opening game. On TV, Schindler was close to making the final day of the UK Open, losing to Jonny Clayton at the last sixteen stage, who would also beat him in Blackpool, while Ratajski would cause a small upset in Leicester. Martin did however get a first win (yes, really) at the European Championship over Dave Chisnall, progress to the Grand Slam knockout stage for the first time, and match a best run at the PC Finals, losing out to Gerwyn Price on both occasions. The next stage is a really deep TV run, and what better place than here to do it?

Stephen Burton has been around the PDC scene for nearly a decade now, but stands just the wrong side of the tour card cutoff as of right now, so will need a win here (or some combination of resignations and really favourable results) to retain it. That's mainly down to a mediocre season - he did enough on the Pro Tour last year to qualify, only for what could be a costly opening loss to Alex Merkx, but this year was not so friendly, needing to qualify through the PDPA qualifier, which Stephen did fairly comfortably with a solid win over Adam Paxton prior to beating the Dutch pair of Marvin van Velzen and Jitse van der Wal 7-5, finishing with an average just shy of 98 in that final. While the Euro Tour qualifying has been made much harder (and worse obviously), you'd have thought someone of Burton's quality would get to at least one, but he didn't (and he was only one game away on a single occasion). The Pro Tour wasn't much better, he was at least winning his opener more often than not, but only won his board once all year and had way too many second round exits, resulting in missing the Players Championship Finals. Burton did have a nice UK Open cameo, getting favourable third/fourth round draws against a qualifier then Radek Szaganski prior to going out to Gian van Veen, who he gave a decent enough game against, but that, outside of getting here through the back door, is maybe the only real bright spot of a season where, looking at the numbers, I'm not sure there's much of an argument that he could have got more out of it.

Keane Barry by contrast did creep into the Pro Tour positions, without which he'd probably be looking at Q-School to regain his card. It's a seventh straight appearance, but it was looking a touch unlikely for quite some time, as Keane needed to come from behind somewhat to book his spot. He couldn't rely on any meaningful European Tour assistance, as he only made the one event all year, which happened to be the last one, and given maybe the hardest first round draw on that circuit right now in Jermaine Wattimena, he couldn't get more than the minimum money. So, with a start to the season which saw just four first round wins in the first fourteen events, only one of which was taken to a board final, it'd need to be the latter part of the season where he'd do his work. He did finally get a couple of board wins either side of the Matchplay, and extend that run to four in seven soon after, and a last event run was the best of the season, getting to the quarter final stage to make things absolutely sure with qualification still not certain prior to that run. He was too high up in the rankings to play the Dev Tour, and didn't do too much on TV - the World Cup was alright but that was pairs, and while he did play both Minehead events, he'd lose to Jurjen van der Velde (hmm, OK) and then Chris Dobey (which is fair enough), while in the Masters losing to Ratajski is understandable enough. I'm not sure if he's a top 64 player right now, and it's not a case of saying he's lacking in senior experience at this stage.

Tim Pusey, he of the second best banned nickname in darts, will make his PDC worlds debut having won the inaugural ADA circuit. The Magnet, for it is he, overcame what was a flying start by Raymond Smith to win three of the last six events, which coupled with four further finals, was just about enough to close and eventually overhaul the gap, although I believe he was reliant on Brody Klinge defeating Smith in a last leg of the last final to make it certain. That ADA tour win got him into the Premier League thing that Whitlock won, where he'd do enough to reach the finals night only to lose to Smith again, while he'd also pick up three DPA finals in one weekend, turning two of them into victories. Tim did play in the Australian leg of the World Series, losing out to Chris Dobey in a moderately tight game, while he's seemingly not touched the WDF circuit. The numbers he's putting up are not convincing, but Keane's lost to worse players in this event before, so who knows?

Ryan is back here for an eighth consecutive appearance, and will be looking as a minimum to continue a streak which has seen him reach at least the third round on every occasion. It's been a year that I'd probably describe as par for the course overall. On the Pro Tour, Searle was just fine, reaching a semi final in the opening weekend and taking one to the hoop in the second, a win tally that'd be doubled towards the end of the season when he denied Mario Vandenbogaerde a first title. That prize money saw him finish just outside the top ten in Pro Tour money, and he played to his seeding at Minehead, losing in the last sixteen to Jermaine Wattimena. It's perhaps surprising that Searle still does not have a Euro Tour title, indeed prior to the end of last season he didn't even have a final, and he wasn't really close to changing that in 2025. Two quarter finals were the best he could do, and he was not in the final day more often than he was in it. Sure, on a lot of occasions he would either be unseeded, or in the lower end of the seeds and hence face a tough last sixteen opponent a lot (of the four times he lost in round three, in three of them he got each of the top three seeds here), but you'd like maybe a little bit more. This got him to Dortmund where he did win a game, but then got van Veen in round two. Elsewhere on TV, it was mainly tough draws - getting Humphries once, Littler once, Price once, and it was only really against Jonny Clayton that you could say he went out to someone that isn't clearly better. This isn't a horrible section of the draw, so maybe he can get something going and push back to the top 16.

Chris Landman is a former finalist in the WDF worlds, and makes his third appearance here following a win in a regional qualifier a few years ago and being one of the last few Pro Tour players in last year. That's how he got here this year as well, so while he has made the worlds both years he's held a tour card, he's going to need to put a run together to keep it following a first round loss to Lee Lok Yin twelve months ago. Chris couldn't get a huge amount going on the floor, taking until PC10 to even make a board final, then for the next twenty events he'd do a little bit better but have as many first round losses as wins. A good last four events got him over the line however - he got to a quarter final in event 31, and another board win on the final weekend would be just what he needed to stay the right side of the qualifying line. Landman made a pair of Euro Tours, and did probably about as much as he could have - beating Gilding before losing to Ross Smith in the first, then beating a domestic qualifier prior to losing to Stephen Bunting. Can't do a whole lot more there. The majors were basically a complete blank - not getting through his group at the Masters, while at the UK Open both him and Christian Kist were averaging a fairly pedestrian number, but Kist won six legs to Landman's one which is what counts. Clearly not a bad player, just one that I don't think has shown enough to say he ought to stick on the PDC circuit, or truly pressure his opponent here.

Dolan has just about hung around in the top 40 in the world to qualify here direct through the order of merit, but after a career which has seen him in the top 32, slide out, claw his way back and stay there for several seasons, Brendan, defending quarter final money, might be sliding lower over the next twelve months. The best we saw from Dolan was clearly on the floor - rarely making a mistake in the opening round, and taking three events very deep. A semi final in March and a further one in September were nice, but were bettered by a final in Hildesheim in May. Granted, he didn't win a leg against Ross Smith when he got there, but he still needed to get there, and the results would have been enough for him to qualify for here through the Pro Tour if the criteria worked the same as last year.  At levels above that, it's been more or less entirely misses. Northern Ireland won the World Cup for the first time, just as Dolan wasn't in the team for the first time. European Tour excursions were limited to just the two showings, one in Leverkusen where he lost to Wessel Nijman, and another in Prague where he lost to Jermaine Wattimena, so not exactly easy draws. Dolan finished in the top 32 seeds for the Players Championship Finals but lost to compatriot Daryl Gurney in the opening round, he lost his opening Masters game to Nick Kenny, and just about held a ranking high enough for a bye to round four of the UK Open, where Danny Lauby defeated him 10-9. There's still signs on the floor that he's alright, and the numbers are OK, but I'm not sure any rise in his level of play or results seems realistic going forward.

Tavis Dudeney is a name that's familiar to a few people, although probably more for what he did in the WDF rather than the PDC oddly enough, in that he was frequently the guy on the other end of final defeats at youth level as the Luke Littler hype train was really starting to gain steam. Tavis did win a tour card directly on day 3 of Q-School, which I thought might be a bit too much progression too quickly potentially, and unfortunately that's kind of turned out to be the case. Dudeney's had a staggering 26 first round defeats at Pro Tour level, ironically the last of which was against his first round opponent here, and only on one occasion where he did get a win did he not immediately lose his next match, where he did win his board to be fair. Worryingly, the better results were early in the year, and outside of wins over the German pair of Pietreczko and Clemens, he's not won a match on the Pro Tour since April. He didn't qualify for any of the European Tour events and lost the first game twelve times (and the second game the other two times), and he wasn't able to do too much elsewhere either. Still able to play the Dev Tour, he made only one semi final and two quarters all season - that did just about get him into the top 32 and he came out of his group at the world youth, but just scraped a win in the first knockout round before going out to Liam Maendl-Lawrance. In what major events he did play, he went 1-1 in his group at the Masters which wasn't enough, while he lost his first UK Open game to Graham Hall. It's been a rough season, and I can only hope it's not created too much of a dent in confidence.

Seems like another easy seed against seed call. Neither seed should have anything to fear in round one, while the other two "seeded" players look like they should both have more than enough to handle their opponents, but not enough to trouble the true seeds, although maybe Dolan could keep it somewhat interesting just through his experience. The Schindler/Searle potential matchup is really intriguing and tight to call (if it happens), I think I'll go with the Englishman just based on better overall numbers and record here, but I can't see too much to separate the pair. Winner - Ryan Searle

Worlds post 2/8 - the Dobey bit

Feels like it's been a season where Dobey's played really well, but the results haven't really reflected what he's done to follow up his worlds semi final from twelve months ago. Certainly in terms of TV, he's not really kicked on, with just the quarter final at Minehead recently (losing to Littler so fine), and then not really making progression anywhere else beyond the bare minimum advancement. Certainly a few he'd want back, but some were just him running into better players, or those at least in the same tier. He's also surprisingly still to win on the European Tour - he did get to the final session four times, but only reached the one semi final and there were far too many second round losses. He did strike decent paydirt on the floor, with a final and then a win really early in the Pro Tour season, adding a second title mid season and then a third during a good ending where he was in the quarter finals or better in four of the last five events. I'm sure he won't mind having a bit of a mediocre TV year if he goes deep in this one, which he does have a habit of doing, although repeating last year's run is going to take some effort.

Zong returns for a fifth crack here and a third straight appearance, and he's yet to end up on the winning side of a match and has only won a set in one event, with a 3-0 sets loss last year to Ricardo Pietreczko seeing him on the wrong side of an 85 average and never really threatening the German winner. He returns having won the China Championship, where he didn't really put up great numbers, but didn't need to as he only lost one set in the knockout stages. Some better averages came in the Chinese Premier League playoffs where he broke 90 both times, and he did pick up a couple of titles on their local tour. He did play in the Asian Championship, where he lost in the first knockout round to Paul Lim, and he has shown up on the Asian Tour a few times, but not really doing much with just the one semi and a couple of quarters, although the World Cup did see Zong pick up a win at least. He seems clearly the best player from his country and has been for some time, but frankly that's not that high a bar and this is too tough a task for him realistically.

Gilding has dropped back out of the top 32 this season with his UK Open winning money dropping off, and while he's looked alright statistically, much like Dobey he's not really done a huge amount in terms of results, with the odd exception here and there. On TV he was one and done in defending that major win money against Ryan Joyce, but did recover a bit with a decent Matchplay run to the quarters, getting an overtime win against Heta then racing into a 5-0 lead against Dirk and holding it out from there prior to pushing Littler surprisingly close. He'd be the last man into the Grand Prix field and lose to Jonny Clayton, then not qualify for anything else after a fairly dry run in the lower ranking events. Gilding did make a Euro Tour final in Sindelfingen, where he didn't win a leg against Gary Anderson, but several first round defeats meant he missed out on the finals, and it was kind of similar on the Pro Tour, where he got to four semi finals, but two thirds of the time he either didn't play or lost in the first or second round. He'd have liked an easier start than this.

Cam Crabtree will make his debut here after a very successful first year as a tour card holder, ending up well up the Pro Tour rankings to qualify here, as well as winning the overall Development Tour to gain plenty of valuable TV experience. On that Dev Tour, Crabtree won three events in the third weekend, and added another two later on in the season, which would be enough to see him finish over two and a half grand ahead of Beau Greaves to top the standings and qualify for the Grand Slam. There he'll probably feel a bit disappointed, having beaten Jonny Clayton but then losing a decider to Noppert then a winner takes all finale against Lukas Wenig to not make the knockout stages. Elsewhere on the senior circuit, Cam got a bit of a UK Open run going with fine wins over Plaisier and Baetens before a bit of a surprise loss to Radek Szaganski, and in his Minehead return he edged out Mike de Decker before averaging over a ton in a deciding leg loss to possible second round opponent Chris Dobey. Cam made three European Tour events but only had the one narrow win over Luke Woodhouse, while on the Pro Tour he was steady, getting to the last eight on three occasions and winning his opening game more than two thirds of the time. That's a pretty steady clip and is an excellent base to build on in 2026.

Woodhouse is now solidly entrenched as a top 32 player, and will likely not be sliding much after this event whatever happens, only defending round one money. Luke is starting to get a bit more going on the big stage, and is also seemingly getting closer to winning a first senior event, being (I believe) the only seed not to have one to their name after Wattimena picked one up finally earlier in the season. On the floor, Woodhouse made two finals, both towards the end of the season - in the last Pro Tour event of the year, where he'd come out as an 8-5 loser to rising star Wessel Nijman, and in the penultimate Euro Tour, where Stephen Bunting would prove to be way too strong in an 8-3 reverse. Luke had two further final sessions in Europe and three quarter finals or better on the floor to keep accumulating steadily. On TV, Woodhouse just missed out on a fourth round bye in the UK Open but got there after beating Sebastian Bialecki, but then disappointed against Mensur Suljovic. He was doing alright at Blackpool, getting to the final break level with Ando but not winning a leg afterwards, but he would edge a decider in Leicester, sweep his Grand Slam group (but then lose to Ricky Evans), and then also surprisingly lose to James Hurrell in the PC Finals after getting an opening win. He's trending in the right direction and breaking the title duck I think will help, but he's still leaving some things on the table I feel.

Krcmar is a vastly experienced player who's won world titles in soft tip and is a very dangerous steel tip player as well, returning after a year away, having dropped his tour card at the end of 2024 following a very disappointing season. Boris returns having won the south east Europe qualifier, where probably the most notable name he defeated was Lakeside seed Benjamin Pratnemer, but was pushed all the way by Rosandic in the final, going to a deciding leg where Krcmar opened up with six perfect darts on throw, sealing the deal in eleven darts. This season we've seen him three times on the European Tour - in the first event he knocked out Josh Rock and Michael van Gerwen before losing a scrappy one to Wade, next up he beat Dirk van Duijvenbode then average over a ton in a narrow loss to Luke Humphries, then finally he averaged 100 again in a deciding leg victory against Gian van Veen, only to then lose to Willie O'Connor. Those are an extremely solid set of victories and indicate Krcmar cannot be taken lightly, not that anyone will be doing so. We've not seen a huge amount out of him apart from that - he didn't play the Challenge Tour, the only thing I can see on the WDF side was a modest run in the Korea Open, and while he would have been eligible for seniors events, that didn't stay around for long enough to really see him do anything there either. Still, Boris is one of the most dangerous opponents Luke could have drawn.

Following last year's debut major final, I think many thought Martin Lukeman could possibly push on, threaten to break the top 32, maybe win a Pro Tour or something like that. If anything, things have stalled since then, and Smash's season has been fairly mediocre. On the floor, Lukeman did just enough to make the Players Championship finals, but couldn't really get close to winning a title, with just a singular quarter final all season, and he only made a board final on a dozen occasions. Then, at Minehead, he'd average in the low 80's in winning just a single leg against Bradley Brooks. On the European Tour, he did alright in getting to five events, albeit only picking up wins in two of them, one over Lukas Wenig (where he was an alternate and lucky to be there in the first place), but in the other he did make the quarters - again he was an alternate, but made the most of it with wins over Pratnemer, Heta and Barney, before narrowly losing to eventual champion Gary Anderson. That Slam runners up spot got him a spot back this year, but would not win a match in a fairly tough group, only really pushing youngster Jurjen van der Velde close, while in the UK Open, Martin just scraped over the line in round three against Jim Williams, before being fairly easily beaten by Nathan Aspinall. It's been a tough year, but he's at least not got an awful draw if he can up his form quickly.

Max Hopp is back on the tour after an absence of a couple of years, and has returned solidly enough to book an Ally Pally return for the first time in five years. The former European Tour winner has mainly done things via solid play and steady accumulation, as opposed to being reliant on any big run in any given event. Hopp did not make even a quarter final on the floor, indeed he only won his board on a couple of occasions, but got past his opening opponent on more than twenty occasions, all those grands and fifteen hundred quids adding up to just enough to squeeze into the Players Championship field as the final seed, naturally being given a tough opponent in Gerwyn Price where he couldn't really get much going. Max did make a couple of Euro Tours, losing in the first to Mike de Decker, but beating Luke Woodhouse in the second prior to losing to Jonny Clayton. There's not really much else to talk about - he couldn't get out of his Masters group, and in the UK Open he was really disappointing in not winning a leg against a qualifier, ending with an average in the seventies. We have a rough idea of what we're going to get, and he can up his game in a stage environment and should have some support, and given a draw that's fairly kind, maybe he can pick up what could be a big win come next year's tour card race.

Overall I think this one should be relatively easy to call. Dobey should take it. Can't see him losing a set in round one, and while I think Gilding/Crabtree will be close, Chris is a fair chunk better than either. Woodhouse could easily come unstuck against Krcmar, and the Lukeman/Hopp game could be tight and scrappy, both will be hard to call but I think whoever wins the first should be a solid favourite against whoever wins the second - but be a dog in round three. Winner - Chris Dobey

It's not been a bad year for Price, even if many might think he's a bit off the top players and/or had a quiet season - he really isn't, and hasn't left too much on the table. Looking from the bottom upwards - Gerwyn's floor season was great, grabbing four Pro Tour titles and making another pair of finals, putting together enough money to enter the Players Championship Finals as the number one seed despite missing around a third of the scheduled events. He'd also add a European Tour title up in Kiel, with a pretty tough run of O'Connor, Nijman, Humphries, Dobey and Anderson on the way to the title, adding an additional four quarter finals to that tally. On TV, Gerwyn won one of the World Series tour events and would reach the World Cup final with Jonny Clayton, but wouldn't be able to make a ranked singles final. He did get to two semi finals in the two most recent events and another two quarter finals, and I don't think he's had any really bad losses - Damon Heta in a deciding leg, Connor Scutt (when he was at his peak) in a deciding leg, Josh Rock (who he avenged heavily in the next TV event), Littler in a deciding leg, Gurney in Dortmund maybe, but then Humphries before Littler again in the last two events. Scoring just shy of 95 for the season is easily a top eight level and not even a quarter of a point off top four level, only one player is higher than 95 and we all know who that is. Price has been doing just fine.

Adam Gawlas is a young if inconsistent Czech talent, who makes his second appearance here three years after getting a narrow win over Richie Burnett prior to a straight sets loss to Ryan Searle. Gawlas returns having won the Czech qualifier, breaking the 90 mark in averages in three of his games, including the semi final and final, although he did leave his first round opponent a three darter for the match, so it could have all gone very differently. We've seen bits and pieces of Adam this year, with an acceptable run in the world youth championship, some Development Tour flashes where he reached two finals and by the looks of things will have just about booked himself a UK Open return unless they change the criteria again, some middling runs on the first Challenge Tour weekend (although that was the only one he played) which did get him into one Pro Tour event. But that's about it - he did apparently win a week on the Super Series, but we'd like to have seen a bit more ideally.

Lukas Wenig is going to make his world championship debut in his second year as a tour card holder, and a couple of key breakthroughs have given him a fair chance of being able to hold onto it going into 2026. The first breakthrough was a floor breakthrough, where after a surprising string of 16 first round defeats in 22 events, Wenig ran all the way to a first Pro Tour final, where in a match which would see a new tour winner one way or another, Lukas ran Jermaine Wattimena fairly close but come out on the wrong side of an 8-5 scoreline. Wenig was able to have a bit better run of form after that, getting past the first round more often than he didn't, but had left too much work to do to make Minehead. Lukas did relatively well in getting to six European Tour events, but would only get one win in any of them, that over Niels Zonneveld, and he promptly got whitewashed in the next round. The other big one came more recently on TV. He did of course play the UK Open, pinching a win against a qualifier before just going down to Kim Huybrechts, but the event that mattered was the Grand Slam. Winning through the tour card holder qualifier, Wenig lost his opening game narrowly to Danny Noppert (missing a stack of match darts if I remember rightly), but rebounded with wins over Clayton and Crabtree to win the group, and then make the most of his chance by taking the first knockout win by a single break over compatriot Niko Springer.. Noppert would easily win the rematch in the quarters, but Wenig had already done his job.

Wesley Plaisier is a pretty well known name, having been one of the strongest non-card holders prior to winning one through last years' Challenge Tour and doing notable things in both PDC and non-PDC events. He returns for a second shot here after going out to Peter Wright in the second round last year, and books his spot through the Pro Tour rankings. Wesley made a relatively slow start to the year, not getting a board win on the floor until the 21st event, but there he would make a second best run of the year to the quarter finals (Plaisier has, of course, won one of these previously), bettering that performance in event 30 where he got as far as the semis before falling. Said slow start was also seen in majors with a prelim exit in the Masters and a first round UK Open loss to Cam Crabtree, while the European Tour was pretty slow all year - taking until the seventh event to qualify for one and then waiting until the final event to make a second of the season. Losing to Cameron Menzies in the first round in both saw him nowhere near Dortmund, and while what he did do on the floor was just enough to book a Minehead return, it was only as one of the last few players and a first round opponent of Jermaine Wattimena would be too hard a task this time. A strong player for sure, likely better than Wenig, but maybe Lukas is coming in with a tad more confidence.

Ryan Joyce is another player who's been bouncing just on the fringes of the top 32 for some time, but looks to have solidified a spot there in the last twelve months with more solid play seeing him into all the majors, and some alright play at that level letting him get a little bit more. Joyce had a relatively quiet floor season, with just a semi final and a quarter final to his name meaning he was unable to add to his two previous titles, but did have a very nice European Tour season, getting to the final session in three out of the first five events, including a first final at that level, picking up wins against four TV title winners on the way to the final where he fell short against Nathan Aspinall. It was on the TV though where Joyce made some nice moves, bagging wins over Andrew Gilding and Danny Lauby at the UK Open before being blown away by Luke Humphries, and while he would go out in the first round of both the Matchplay and Grand Prix, both wins were very narrow against top level opponents (and he was defending nothing in terms of ranking money). Joyce would make a quarter final at the European Championship, only losing to the eventual champion, and he'd get past Dave Chisnall at the PC Finals before going out to a rampant Wattimena. Ryan typically plays and gets better results than his stats suggest, so will be one to watch out for.

Owen Bates is in his second year of owning a tour card, and will make a return here after not qualifying last year, but is here after creeping into the last couple of Pro Tour places, although a very strong Development Tour season gave him a backup route should he not have done enough on the senior circuit (as well as his tour card back whatever happens). Bates, he formerly of the best nickname in the sport, had a relatively steady Pro Tour season, getting through his first game half the time, although his form did tail off a bit towards the end of the season. That said, he only managed a pair of board victories in July, so is yet to really make an impression at senior level. Bates did make a pair of Euro Tours, but would lose to Ritchie Edhouse in one and be destroyed by Krzysztof Ratajski, a possible second round opponent, in the other. Owen lost his opening UK Open game narrowly to George Killington, leaving him without much to shout about at senior level, but the Dev Tour was great. A win and a final in the first weekend was added to with a second win in the second weekend, while two more finals would see him finish comfortably third in the rankings behind only Crabtree and Greaves. He's got a lot of potential, and the stats right now aren't bad, but he's still maybe one for the future to some extent.

Krzysztof Ratajski remains one of the more dangerous players on the circuit, so it is perhaps a surprise that we see him outside of the top 32. This appears to be partially down to a slow back end to 2024, and similar to start 2025 - making a couple of early quarter finals on the floor, before going on a seven event first round losing streak. This was ended with a Pro Tour win, beating Dave Chisnall, because why wouldn't it end like that, but Euro Tour problems with failure to qualify for four events, and first round exits in two he did make, left him too far behind even with that Pro Tour win and as a result he missed the Matchplay for the first time since 2018. Results did get a bit better later on in the season, and he did creep back into the field for the Grand Prix, so is heading in the right direction. TV was alright - he beat Chisnall and Cullen at the UK Open before giving Littler somewhat of a test, he comfortably beat Martin Schindler at Leicester before running into Luke Humphries, would draw Humphries again in Dortmund in the first round, then repeated a last sixteen run at Minehead just recently, beating Barney and van Veen before losing by the odd break to Josh Rock. There's still a strong player in there, although probably past his peak.

Alexis Toylo will make a second appearance here, after making a winning debut twelve months ago with a surprise straight sets win against Richard Veenstra, prior to losing three sets to one against, oddly enough, Krzysztof Ratajski, so we get an immediate rematch in this section of the draw. Toylo returns after having finished runner up in the Asian Championship, losing 7-4 in the final to Lourence Ilagan after a pair of last leg deciding wins to get to that stage. He didn't need this however, as he won the Asian Tour anyway, grabbing five victories across the season, weighted towards the back end of the year, so doing things when it mattered to some extent. We didn't see Toylo at the World Cup as the Philippines went with the team of Ilagan and Nebrida, but we would surprisingly see him on TV later in the year at the Grand Slam, with Ilagan withdrawing for health reasons, Alexis got the nod as the runner up in the Asian Championship. There he'd produce a big upset by defeating Stephen Bunting, drawing some criticism for his speed of play (which ought not to bother Ratajski, who's deliberate to some extent himself), but couldn't get a win over either Luke Woodhouse or Martin Schindler and so finished third in the group stage. Feels like he's one of the better Asian players, just that it's a tough draw here.

Can't really look past Gerwyn here. The first two rounds ought to cause few dramas, although I could see Plaisier making him work a bit should Wesley nick his game against Wenig, which I think he'll just about do. Joyce and Ratajski ought to win their openers comfortably enough, then go against each other in one where I think Joyce has the edge, but it's not by much. Price ought to have enough firepower against either of them - I could see Price dropping a set or two, but the match seems like too much of an ask. Winner - Gerwyn Price

Worlds post 1/8 - the Littler bit

Just to make a few clarifying points before I get into full analysis mode. ANY ROUND ONE PROJECTIONS WILL FOLLOW AFTER ALL THE WRITE UPS. Don't want to get into any "should I bet Litter at 1.04 against Darius" questions (probably). In terms of the data tables, the seeding is the official seeding, for 33-64 it's where they ranked in the remainder of the order of merit (although obviously once you get past Hempel or whoever the first man not in was, it's not the actual order of merit position). FRH is the FRH ranking as of a few days ago with first round money included. Use the FAQ if you don't know what this means. Qual by is how they got here, if an abbreviation isn't obvious then Wikipedia works where you are. W-L is leg count in my database. I've been through what is and isn't included before but can revisit it if someone asks. Scoring is the points scored per turn (so this is NOT three dart average - a 13 darter will go down as 100.2 for example). Consistency is the difference in scoring between legs a player has won and those that they lost, so a lower number implies more consistency (and/or running badly in terms of results). Last year is self explanatory. Lakeside (open) is listed if applicable. I know the ADC did hold something they'd like to class as a worlds but as their system is too confusing for me I ignore it.

Littler is just so good. I think the last time we saw anyone this far ahead of the field was peak MvG, and looking back a few posts, going off at evens (he's even gone odds on in some places) might be slightly short but completely understandable. Any time he loses a match seems to make the headlines, and it's really hard to see anyone getting remotely close - although maybe the best chance might come in this little section, but we'll get to that. Having already won basically everything the sport has to offer, the only real question is how long he stays motivated for. There's been occasions where in games it looks like he's metaphorically playing with his food, seemingly not giving a fuck for half the match before turning on the afterburners and running away with the game. That said, as we saw in last year's final, when he needs to start quickly, he certainly can.

Darius returns here for a seventh appearance. He dropped his card two years ago having for all intents and purposes being someone just making up the numbers on tour in 2023, but did enough in the Nordic events to qualify last year (having got a fairly awkward draw in Ryan Joyce), and this year he gets here through the Pro Tour - making a fast start on the Challenge Tour by winning one event in the first weekend and then two in the second, this gave him enough to get into the Pro Tour via the top up list basically all season, having a best spell in mid season and augmenting his record with a Nordic tour win in Finland and four Euro Tour appearances, although only getting the one win against Ryan Searle (blame the PDC's rules for that one). The stats don't look that much better than when he dropped off the tour however, and given the draw I don't think we need to seriously discuss chances further.

Mario was the last player into the field in the "good" pot, and has work to do to make his tour card safe. One win might be enough (and realistically is all he can get) but he could certainly do with some help from other results. After a little bit of a down 2024, the Belgian recovered nicely in 2025, actually translating what always looked like alright numbers into results, being one of the year's surprise Pro Tour finalists, losing out in Leicester to Ryan Searle by a narrow margin, but this, along with a decent start seeing three board wins in the first half of the Pro Tour season, and four Euro Tour appearances with a peak of round three, sees him well up the Pro Tour rankings. Mario was mainly known as a BDO/WDF large field knockout specialist, but has reached a Lakeside semi and had an alright UK Open outing, beating Labanauskas and Veenstra before running Schindler fairly close, so does have some TV results.

David was a pretty much unknown name to me this time last year, but has made huge strides in the second half of 2025 to become someone on the radar, getting here by winning a very tough UK and Ireland qualifier, where he needed to beat the likes of Steve West, Henry Coates and then Lakeside champion Shane McGuirk in the final. This was not out of nowhere by any stretch, as he was able to win a Challenge Tour in August over Alex Merkx, which got him into a few of the late Pro Tour events, looking fairly decent, winning his opening game more often than not, and managing to win his board on his second attempt. This was added to by an Irish Open win in the WDF system last month where he beat McGuirk again, upcomer Jenson Walker, and finally veteran Ross Montgomery in the final. Vandebogaerde might be a tough ask, but it's not out of the question.

Joe's slipped down the rankings a fair bit and only just held onto a seeded spot, which is a surprise given that his overall numbers actually look pretty good, and also given that he started the Pro Tour season with a bang, opening with a final in the very first event before winning the fifth over Gian van Veen in a deciding leg. He'd have a bit of a quiet spell but prove it to be no fluke, adding a second deciding leg win in September, this time over Gerwyn Price. Outside of those two however, it's been slim pickings, with only a couple of final day appearances on the Euro Tour (where he was one of the last seeds and got relatively straightforward draws, only to lose in the last sixteen), and he has a solitary TV win at the Grand Prix over Wade all year. Numbers solid, but outside of the floor he's not really been able to make winning a habit, but he does have a tendency to show up here when you don't expect it.

Bradley's been one of the break out stars of 2025, with spoilers of what might be to come at Q-School, where he regained his card after a bit of a break with truly dominant performances and averages, albeit not winning a day outright. It was perhaps a surprisingly slow start to the season, taking until event 11 to get to a board final on the floor and losing his opening UK Open game to Jurjen van der Velde, but he would make a couple of Euro Tour events, get through to a floor quarter in mid season before getting a breakthrough senior win over Gerwyn Price in July. Brooks would follow this up with a semi final two events later and two further quarter finals, pushing him up to the point where he is close to Pro Tour seedings and maybe direct Euro Tour invites, although a quick start to 2026 may be required. Brooks easily dispatched Martin Lukeman at Minehead recently before surprisingly losing to Adam Lipscombe. Make no mistake - Brooks is in red hot form, and absolutely has enough game to beat Joe, maybe even ask questions of Luke should he get there.

Mensur has had a fairly steady 2025, after a poor 2023 where he didn't make the worlds and a consolidating 2024 where he was likely just happy to retain his tour card. His best game has clearly gone, but numbers just the tiniest fraction under 90 for the season are perfectly respectable. Results have not been fantastic - he didn't qualify for the Players Championship Finals having just got the one board win and a handful of board finals, but winning his opener more often than not, along with an OK European Tour campaign where he made five events and picked up four wins, was enough to see him among the middle of the pack of Pro Tour qualifiers. Suljovic had a nice little UK Open cameo with a win over Nathan Rafferty to get into the pot with the big boys, and would eliminate Luke Woodhouse to make the second day, where he'd be blown away by Willie O'Connor. Still not a bad player, but I think the peak is one and done here.

David returns having been the top ranked Canadian on the CDC circuit, finishing a huge distance ahead of his nearest challenger on that ranking. Cameron won two of the events on that circuit, and added a further three finals to book a return here after a year away. Cameron, who's had some success in the seniors circuit when that was still a thing, would also make it to the Continental Cup final in the CDC system, losing to Alex Spellman and unfortunately missing a Grand Slam spot as a result, and had some WDF success very early in the season by winning the Las Vegas Open. He's an experienced competitor, but that's not exactly going to help against Suljovic, and the statistics look to have tailed off somewhat in the last couple of seasons, so I don't think this one will be as close as it might have been a couple of years back, where I might even have made Cameron a favourite.

Overall, can't look past Luke. Mario and Mensur should both win their opening games but then lose the second. The question then is if Brooks can turn over Cullen - I want to say he can, but it'll be tight. Then the question is if either of them can get close to Luke. I think Bradley might have a bit more of a DGAF attitude and the higher peak game right now which is clearly going to need to show up to stand a chance, but I think that extra set that'd be needed in round three will be the insurance Luke would need if it got a bit twitchy. Winner - Luke Littler

Feels like it's been a relatively quiet year for Damon, and I think on TV it probably has really. He got to the quarters of the World Masters before running into Humphries, and would get a couple of wins at the UK Open prior to running into a rampant Gian van Veen (although Damon did at least force a deciding leg), but since then it's been a string of first round exits for The Heat, which, apart from the European Championship where he got eventual champion van Veen again, didn't really see him get horrible draws, and has seen him slide from a top 8 seed at Blackpool to barely in the top 16 here. The floor form has remained solid however - Damon picked up two Pro Tour titles to keep his ranking there steady, getting the first over Aspinall and the second over Bunting, but ideally he'd have liked to convert what was a very solid number of board wins (sixteen!) into more results, and overall do better on the Euro Tour, where he did reach one final (losing to Aspinall this time) but would lose his opening game more often than not. Heta clearly has the quality to get out of this, but it's not the nicest set of opponents he could get.

First would be Steve Lennon, who has been one of those players who has looked really good in terms of statistics, but just never really converted it into consistent results, going all the way back to getting to a Euro Tour final getting close to a decade ago now. He lost his card two years ago as a result and is probably going to lose it again, but at least has done enough this season to get to the worlds after missing out last season, the expanded format probably helping him being barely in the middle third of Pro Tour qualifiers. TV was basically a complete loss, losing in the prelims of the World Masters and getting an admittedly tough draw first up in the UK Open in Dom Taylor. A Pro Tour record of just one board win and five more board finals would see him miss a Minehead return, and a solitary pair of Euro Tour appearances didn't see him do too much there either, but in the second one of those he did at least make the last sixteen. And the seed he beat to do that? Damon Heta. Funny that.

Barney is still just about retaining relevance, having just dropped out of the top 32 in the world but retaining his place here through the expanded list of main ranking spots to 40, but would have been just fine through the Pro Tour regardless. On the Pro Tour, he played a surprisingly heavy schedule, although he reached just the one quarter final and only a further three board wins, all of which came before the Matchplay. He used the new Euro Tour rules to the fullest to play in all of them, but was out on the Friday more often than he made the Sunday, and in those Sundays he only pushed on to a solitary quarter final, and that was mainly thanks to a good draw (although, oddly enough, he did beat Damon Heta on the way). On TV, Barney was one of the first players to miss a bye to the opening evening of the UK Open, he did win that first game prior to losing a poor game against Dimitri, and would lose in the first round of the other three TV events he played - although if the easiest opponent is Gary Anderson, there is some mitigation for that. The stats are maybe the worst we've seen from RvB - they should be enough to break that TV losing streak, but he ought to be a dog in round two whoever he faces.

Stefan Bellmont returns for a second stab at this event, having been Switzerland's first player to make it in twelve months ago, losing comfortably to Jermaine Wattimena. Last year he came through one of the one off qualifiers, this year it is from the Challenge Tour, winning that to get a card for the first time for 26-27. On that Challenge Tour he got one win in the opening weekend over former Pro Tour winner Danny Jansen, added a second against Keegan Brown and a third in the penultimate event to secure the overall win and a Grand Slam debut, landing in a hard group but getting a win over James Wade at least. Stefan was in the UK Open but got a brutal draw against Beau Greaves, and that Challenge Tour success got him into the vast majority of Pro Tour events. Bellmont had a bit of a rough time there, losing in round one fairly frequently, but showed a glimpse of what he can do with an early surprise semi final run, knocking out Gerwyn Price and Josh Rock amongst others. He's gained a lot of experience these past two years, but the stats remain mediocre and he could be a bit out of his depth here.

Rob Cross is now eight years removed from his world title, and under a bit of pressure having dropped out of the top sixteen and defending semi final money at this event. It's been an up and down year on and off the oche, and it started alright with a World Series win in the Netherlands, a convincing win in the first Pro Tour of the season, and a tight win over Danny Noppert at the UK Open to get to the last sixteen, where he'd run into Josh Rock. However, for the rest of the year, he couldn't really get much going, with just the one semi final on the floor for the rest of the season over a truncated schedule, only one foray into the final session of the European Tour, and disappointing TV form, missing the Slam, losing first round in three of the remaining events to Dirk, Aspinall and most surprisingly Bialecki, only getting the one win (just) over Nijman in Leicester before going out to Cameron Menzies. His numbers are fine, if below his best, but results just haven't been coming.

Cor became the first Norwegian to gain a tour card at Q-School in January, and will make his debut here having crept into the field at the death, gaining one of the last slots on the Pro Tour ranking list, gaining two of his five board finals over the course of the year in the last four events to sneak over the line. That wouldn't likely be enough on its own, but he did have the bonus of a notable run on the European Tour in Switzerland, where he got all the way to the semi finals, albeit with multiple opponents gifting him quite a lot of easy legs. Luke Woodhouse would eventually stop him, but the money in the bank got him here. Cor didn't do a great deal on the SDC tour, finishing tenth on the rankings and going out in the quarters of the season end championship to Teemu Harju, while he wouldn't get out of the prelims at the Masters and get absolutely blitzed by Niko Springer in the first round of the UK Open. The good news is that he appears to be playing better stuff more recently, the bad news is the numbers are way off Rob's which leads me to think this might be a tad one sided.

White's a well known veteran at this stage, and while he is clearly some way off where he was at 6-7 years ago when he was playing and winning Euro Tour events, he is still showing more than enough to get here really comfortably and has pulled away from the danger zone he was in a couple of years ago in terms of retaining his card easily enough. His floor form has been a bit sporadic, losing in the opening round around half the time, but having a great spell around Easter time, reaching a first final in five years, going down in the final to Price, and following it up with a semi final just over a week later. That set him up nicely in the rankings to be safe for here, and would add four Euro Tour appearances, albeit with just the one win over Madars Razma. On TV, White couldn't get out of the prelims in the Masters, and while he made both Minehead events, he lost his first game to Adam Lipscombe and Scott Williams, averaging below 80 in that second one just recently. Not the sort of performance you want coming into a biggie like this.

Ian will play one of the few players still around with move experience than him in Mervyn King, Mervyn experiencing his first year without a tour card since he made his switch from the BDO. Despite some of the opportunities he thought he might have as a non-card holder, he's still done alright for himself, coming through as the last Challenge Tour qualifier by a small margin ahead of Michael Unterbuchner. King reached a final in the first weekend to give him an alright position in terms of Pro Tour call ups, before converting in May with a 5-0 final win over Henry Coates, adding a second final for that weekend a couple of days later. King would leave it late to secure his spot, but a semi final in the final event sees his return after two years away. King got into most of the Pro Tour events, not doing an enormous amount but he did pick up a couple of board wins, including a quarter final in Germany. The numbers are steady and fairly close to White's, I'd favour Ian slightly but this is a tight one.

As to who wins this section, I think Damon will have enough in rounds one and two, I think whoever comes through Heta/Lennon is better than Barney (who I can't see having problems with Bellmont), and I'm thinking that Steve might not have the confidence to get over the line. Cross should put away Cor easily, while White/King is one of the tougher matches to call in round one. I'd give Ian the slight edge, but I don't think either will trouble Cross either, although they might keep it tighter than Cor can. That leaves a 16 v 17 seed showdown and I think I just have to go with Rob's slightly better scoring numbers, although this is one that might go either way (and that I probably called the other way in the instant reaction stream, come to think of it). Winner - Rob Cross