New stupid tournament idea - Basho!

WARNING - NO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENT IN THIS POST

I mentioned before I started on the worlds previews that I had a new stupid tournament format idea. So with the previews all done, let's look at it. For better or worse, I've been watching a lot of sumo over the past couple of months. Probably directly relates to them having a tournament in the UK for the first time since Phil Taylor had one world title, but whatever. What I liked about it was three fold, ignoring the actual merits of the sport:

a) Matches are quick. They can literally be over in seconds. Perfect for the Tiktok/ADHD addled generation.

b) The entirety of the pro scene has one continually moving, fluid divisional system, where competitors can rise or fall very quickly and will do so after a very good or bad tournament.

c) As such, every match matters - not just for those that want to win the outright title, there's a heck of a lot of pressure on getting the eighth win to have a winning record for the tournament, and conversely avoiding the eighth loss. But even after you've hit either mark, it still matters, as the amount you go up and down the rankings is not static, someone with a 7-8 record will only have a small drop, but end up 3-12 and you'll plummet.

So I then thought this could actually be a pretty good kind of system for darts in an odd way. How I would configure the tournament is like this:

- It runs across a seven day period starting on a Monday and ending on a Sunday, in something similar to a Euro Tour venue, replacing one European Tour and two Pro Tour events in the calendar. Total prize money would be relatively the same - the events being replaced would amount to £425k in prize money, but let's bump it to half a million (with revenue from additional sessions of live play open to the public, that does not seem absurd). Would probably look to hold around four of these per season, and each day's play has two sessions.

- The list of tour card holders is broken up into three roughly equal divisions - the top 40 who will play on the stage, then the next 40 and last 48 in lower divisions, who will play backstage on a pair of streamed boards. Whoever wants to enter plays, if there are fewer than 40 who enter in the bottom division, then Challenge Tour players complete the field just like in a Pro Tour. The bottom division stream on the afternoon session, the middle division on the evening session. If the stage schedule is running ahead of schedule then additional matches can be pulled from the stream room to fill out the time.

- Matches are a potentially very short format - first to gain a two leg lead wins the match, sudden death if 5-5. In other words, very similar to a tiebreaker deciding set at the worlds, except that if someone goes 2-0 up the match is over. To avoid the situation where it is the same player who is trying to hold to stay in the match all the time, rather than alternating legs, someone will have the darts in leg 1, then the other player will have it for the next TWO legs, and they swap throw every two legs after that.

- Opponents are determined for the following day after the previous day's matches are finished - there is no fixed match list. Who a player will get is typically based on trying to give an even structure of players ahead and behind them in the previous rankings in the first few days, before trying to match up those with more even records and clashes between the highest ranked players in later days. This has two purposes - it ensures that players will normally play someone in the same kind of tournament situation as them to increase the importance of each match, and loading the biggest match ups towards the end of the tournament helps to increase the excitement and hype around the business end. Should a player or players decide to not enter a given tournament, or withdraw midway through for whatever reason, then they are not outright replaced like for like - instead, each day will see players at the top end of the division above get a call up, the result counting in each player's respective division, the bonus for the player moving up being that they're playing for bigger prizes on the day.

- Whoever has the best record in each division wins. If two or more players are tied with the best record, then a playoff match(es) will take place to determine the winner. Following the tournament, players will move up or down the rankings, and up or down divisions, based on their records. Additionally, to take into account the tour card system, players who lose their tour card but don't regain it will be removed from the rankings, and everyone below them slides up a place.

In terms of prize money, this is how I would break it down for top/middle/bottom divisions:

Outright division winner: £50k/£30k/£20k

Individual match win: £1k/£600/£400

Tournament winning record: £60k/£36k/£24k split evenly between the respective players. Should the bottom division run with more than 40 players then the £24k will be reduced to account for more match win prizes needing to be paid.

Sounds complicated? It really isn't, but I'll do a walkthrough of how a typical tournament would operate in a separate post. That said, I hope there's enough explanation there to demonstrate how this would generate a lot of evenly matched content, and give everyone across the 128 a fair chance of having a solid week. Just getting to 4-3 in the bottom division would get you more than two and a half grand, which for a lower tier player isn't bad given that, in the tournaments this would replace, you're probably not qualifying for the Euro Tour and you'd probably need to beat a seed twice in the Pro Tours to do that.

Basho example

WARNING - STILL NO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENT IN THIS POST

So let's walk you through how a tournament would work. We'll just do this for the top division - lower divisions, for all intents and purposes, operate in the same way. Let's start with the ranking list as of the last tournament - here I've just taken today's FRH rankings and placed players accordingly:

To demonstrate what happens in the event of someone not taking part, I'm going to pretend Gary Anderson and Ryan Joyce have withdrawn from this event. I'm just maintaining the standard ranking names as used in sumo, which would clearly be anglicised somehow, but from here, let's draw the first two day's matches and simulate it:

Day 1:

Luke Littler 0-2 Jonny Clayton

Luke Humphries 0-2 Michael van Gerwen

James Wade 0-2 Nathan Aspinall

Gian van Veen 1-3 Chris Dobey

Danny Noppert 5-3 Josh Rock

Stephen Bunting 5-3 Damon Heta

Gerwyn Price 3-1 Ryan Searle

Jermaine Wattimena 3-1 Luke Woodhouse

Ross Smith 3-1 Mike de Decker

Martin Schindler 3-1 Cameron Menzies

Wessel Nijman 3-1 Dave Chisnall

Daryl Gurney 3-5 Andrew Gilding

Dirk van Duijvenbode 2-0 Ricardo Pietreczko

Rob Cross 0-2 Ritchie Edhouse

Peter Wright 1-3 Michael Smith

Joe Cullen 2-0 Dimitri van den Bergh

Krzysztof Ratajski 4-2 Martin Lukeman

Raymond van Barneveld 4-6 Kevin Doets (j)

Willie O'Connor 2-0 Niels Zonneveld

Niko Springer 0-2 Scott Williams (j)

Day 2:

Luke Littler 2-0 Martin Schindler

Luke Humphries 0-2 Stephen Bunting

James Wade 2-0 Jermaine Wattimena

Gian van Veen 3-1 Wessel Nijman

Danny Noppert 1-3 Gerwyn Price

Jonny Clayton 0-2 Dirk van Duijvenbode

Michael van Gerwen 2-0 Peter Wright

Josh Rock 2-0 Daryl Gurney

Nathan Aspinall 3-1 Chris Dobey

Ross Smith 6-5 Damon Heta

Mike de Decker 4-2 Ryan Searle

Luke Woodhouse 3-5 Nike Springer

Cameron Menzies 2-0 Raymond van Barneveld

Dave Chisnall 0-2 Krzysztof Ratajski

Rob Cross 2-0 Andrew Gilding

Ricardo Pietreczko 1-3 Joe Cullen

Ritchie Edhouse 0-2 Willie O'Connor

Michael Smith 2-0 Dimitri van den Betgh

Martin Lukeman 2-0 Callan Rydz (j)

Niels Zonneveld 2-0 Brendan Dolan (j)

These are all ordered with the highest ranked player first, and the higher ranked player on the left. You'll notice that most players will have one match on each side of the match list, this will indicate that they've played both someone ranked higher and lower than them. Obviously those right at the top (and bottom) can't do this, and for some other players it can't be helped to give them an easier/harder start, but we can rectify that as we start to schedule based on record as well. Looks like there's only eight players with a 2-0 record already. Those players I have denoted with a (j) have been called up from the division below for that day. The first two days were decided mostly at random, but I'll start scheduling with a bit more thought from now on.

Day 3:

Luke Littler 3-1 Gerwyn Price

Luke Humphries 3-1 Nathan Aspinall

James Wade 0-2 Jonny Clayton

Gian van Veen 4-2 Michael van Gerwen

Danny Noppert 1-3 Chris Dobey

Stephen Bunting 2-0 Ross Smith

Josh Rock 4-2 Mike de Decker

Jermaine Wattimena 2-0 Martin Schindler

Damon Heta 4-2 Rob Cross

Wessel Nijman 3-1 Cameron Menzies

Ryan Searle 5-3 Luke Woodhouse

Daryl Gurney 0-2 Dirk van Duijvenbode

Dave Chisnall 4-2 Michael Smith

Peter Wright 0-2 Willie O'Connor

Andrew Gilding 2-0 Ritchie Edhouse

Ricardo Pietreczko 0-2 Mickey Mansell (j)

Joe Cullen 0-2 Krzysztof Ratajski

Raymond van Barneveld 1-3 Niko Springer

Dimitri van den Bergh 1-3 Ricky Evans (j)

Martin Lukeman 0-2 Niels Zonneveld

This has now resulted in quite a lot of the undefeated players lose today - only Bunting, van Duijvenbode, Ratajski and O'Connor remain with perfect records. Let's keep going on.

Day 4:

Luke Littler (2-1) 0-2 Gian van Veen (2-1)

Luke Humphries (1-2) 2-0 Jonny Clayton (2-1)

James Wade (1-2) 0-2 Josh Rock (2-1)

Danny Noppert (1-2) 5-6 Michael van Gerwen (2-1)

Stephen Bunting (3-0) 6-4 Gerwyn Price (2-1)

Nathan Aspinall (2-1) 0-2 Jermaine Wattimena (2-1)

Chris Dobey (2-1) 0-2 Dirk van Duijvenbode (3-0)

Ross Smith (2-1) 2-0 Martin Schindler (1-2)

Damon Heta (1-2) 3-1 Mike de Decker (1-2)

Wessel Nijman (2-1) 2-0 Ryan Searle (1-2)

Luke Woodhouse (0-3) 0-2 Andrew Gilding (2-1)

Daryl Gurney (0-3) 0-2 Krzysztof Ratajski (3-0)

Cameron Menzies (1-2) 3-1 Willie O'Connor (3-0)

Dave Chisnall (1-2) 6-4 Rob Cross (1-2)

Peter Wright (0-3) 4-2 Jeffrey de Graaf (j)

Ricardo Pietreczko (0-3) 0-2 Ritchie Edhouse (1-2)

Joe Cullen (2-1) 4-2 Michael Smith (2-1)

Raymond van Barneveld (0-3) 2-0 Martin Lukeman (1-2)

Dimitri van den Bergh (0-3) 2-0 Niels Zonneveld (2-1)

Niko Springer (2-1) 3-5 Kevin Doets (j)

So we see Bunting, DvD and Ratajski maintain their perfect record (and lock up winning records) but Ratajski falls off into a big cluster of nine players at 3-1. At the other end three players have now dropped to 0-4. We go again.

Day 5:

Luke Littler (2-2) 2-0 Danny Noppert (1-3)

Luke Humphries (2-2) 1-3 Gerwyn Price (2-2)

James Wade (1-3) 4-2 Gian van Veen (3-1)

Stephen Bunting (4-0) 2-0 Michael van Gerwen (3-1)

Jonny Clayton (2-2) 6-5 Wessel Nijman (3-1)

Josh Rock (3-1) 3-1 Jermaine Wattimena (3-1)

Nathan Aspinall (2-2) 6-5 Ross Smith (3-1)

Chris Dobey (2-2) 0-2 Krzysztof Ratajski (4-0)

Martin Schindler (1-3) 3-1 Mike de Decker (1-3)

Damon Heta (2-2) 2-0 Dirk van Duijvenbode (4-0)

Ryan Searle (1-3) 1-3 Willie O'Connor (3-1)

Luke Woodhouse (0-4) 3-1 Daryl Gurney (0-4)

Cameron Menzies (2-2) 1-3 Dave Chisnall (2-2)

Rob Cross (1-3) 2-0 Peter Wright (1-3)

Andrew Gilding (3-1) 0-2 Joe Cullen (3-1)

Ricardo Pietreczko (0-4) 2-4 Dimitri van den Bergh (1-3)

Ritchie Edhouse (2-2) 5-3 Callan Ryfz (j)

Michael Smith (2-2) 3-1 Scott Williams (j)

Raymond van Barneveld (1-3) 2-0 Niels Zonneveld (2-2)

Martin Lukeman (1-3) 3-1 Niko Springer (2-2)

So Bunting and Ratajski remain unbeaten, and will be given legitimate opponents, while a lot of players have now secured a winning or losing record. Let's go on.

Day 6:

Luke Littler (3-2) 1-3 Stephen Bunting (5-0)

Luke Humphries (2-3) 2-0 James Wade (2-3)

Gian van Veen (3-2) 3-5 Gerwyn Price (3-2)

Danny Noppert (1-4) 5-6 Krzysztof Ratajski (5-0)

Jonny Clayton (3-2) 2-0 Josh Rock (4-1)

Michael van Gerwen (3-2) 2-0 Nathan Aspinall (3-2)

Chris Dobey (2-3) 0-2 Willie O'Connor (4-1)

Jermaine Wattimena (3-2) 6-5 Dirk van Duijvenbode (4-1)

Ross Smith (3-2) 2-4 Cameron Menzies (2-3)

Martin Schindler (2-3) 1-3 Damon Heta (3-2)

Mike de Decker (1-4) 0-2 Joe Cullen (4-1)

Wessel Nijman (3-2) 3-1 Dave Chisnall (3-2)

Ryan Searle (1-4) 6-4 Brendan Dolan (j)

Luke Woodhouse (1-4) 2-0 Peter Wright (1-4)

Daryl Gurney (0-5) 0-2 Ricky Evans (j)

Rob Cross (2-3) 0-2 Niko Springer (2-3)

Andrew Gilding (3-2) 3-5 Michael Smith (3-2)

Ricardo Pietreczko (0-5) 2-0 Raymond van Barneveld (2-3)

Ritchie Edhouse (3-2) 0-2 Niels Zonneveld (2-3)

Dimitri van den Bergh (2-3) 2-0 Martin Lukeman (2-3)

So going into the final day, we have two undefeated players, who'll go against each other for the title. This is also where we chuck as many players on 3-3 against each other as possible to see who ends up with a winning record, which oddly includes both Lukes.

Day 7:

Luke Littler (3-3) 6-5 Luke Humphries (3-3)

James Wade (2-4) 2-4 Gerwyn Price (4-2)

Gian van Veen (3-3) 2-0 Nathan Aspinall (3-3)

Danny Noppert (1-5) 2-0 Jonny Clayton (4-2)

Stephen Bunting (6-0) 3-1 Krzsyztof Ratajski (6-0)

Michael van Gerwen (4-2) 3-1 Josh Rock (4-2)

Chris Dobey (2-4) 3-1 Joe Cullen (5-1)

Jermaine Wattimena (4-2) 2-4 Damon Heta (4-2)

Ross Smith (3-3) 3-1 Wessel Nijman (4-2)

Martin Schindler (2-4) 3-1 Luke Woodhouse (2-4)

Mike de Decker (1-5) 0-2 Willie O'Connor (5-1)

Ryan Searle (2-4) 2-0 Cameron Menzies (3-3)

Daryl Gurney (0-6) 2-0 Michael Smith (4-2)

Dirk van Duijvenbode (4-2) 2-0 Jeffrey de Graaf (j)

Dave Chisnall (3-3) 4-2 Andrew Gilding (3-3)

Rob Cross (2-4) 1-3 Mickey Mansell (j)

Peter Wright (1-5) 4-2 Raymond van Barneveld (2-4)

Ricardo Pietreczko (1-5) 4-2 Martin Lukeman (2-4)

Ritchie Edhouse (3-3) 0-2 Dimitri van den Bergh (3-3)

Niko Springer (3-3) 2-0 Niels Zonneveld (3-3)

This gives final rankings of:

7-0 - Stephen Bunting

6-1 - Krzysztof Ratajski, Willie O'Connor

5-2 - Gian van Veen, Gerwyn Price, Michael van Gerwen, Damon Heta, Dirk van Duijvenbode, Joe Cullen

4-3 - Luke Littler, Jonny Clayton, Josh Rock, Jermaine Wattimena, Ross Smith, Wessel Nijman, Dave Chisnall, Michael Smith, Dimitri van den Bergh, Niko Springer

3-4 - Luke Humphries, Nathan Aspinall, Chris Dobey, Martin Schindler, Ryan Searle, Cameron Menzies, Andrew Gilding, Ritchie Edhouse, Niels Zonneveld

2-5 - James Wade, Danny Noppert, Luke Woodhouse, Rob Cross, Peter Wright, Ricardo Pietreczko, Raymond van Barneveld, Martin Lukeman

1-6 - Mike de Decker, Daryl Gurney

0-0-7 - Gary Anderson, Ryan Joyce

Hence 19 players would split the winning record prize, Bunting would of course claim the champion's pot. The only thing left to do now is to work out the post-tournament rankings. Here' the typical yardstick is to move someone up or down one rank (for these purposes, rank indicates one row on the initial ranking, i.e. each rank has two players, east and west, with the former being technically higher) for each win you have more than losses, or vice versa. However, promotion up to the top ozeki rank has special requirements in sumo (and similarly to the rank of yokozuna above that again), and similarly for relegation from that rank. We're going to assume that Humphries is not already in what they'd call kadoban and will not drop, similarly we're going to assume that nobody is in the spot where they could potentially promote to the top rank based on this tournament's results. Now it can become a bit complicated as you can very easily end up with more than one player at a new rank - indeed in this example, you have four players (van Veen, Bunting, Price and MvG) all with enough wins to get to the top rank you can freely promote to. Hence there is frequently a lot of manual fiddling, often resulting in some players moving up down more or less than expected, although it's usually the case that they will always have you moving somewhat in the right direction. As such, the next ranking might look something like this:

The last three spots indicate players who would have earned promotion from the division below. As we didn't simulate it, I'm just slotting them into the bottom three positions, replacing Lukeman, Zonneveld and van Barneveld, whose records were such that they would normally expect to be relegated. In reality, those promoted might actually have a bit of a higher rank, or those towards the top of the lower divisions might all have losing or otherwise not convincing enough of a record to earn promotion, which might result in a reprieve for one of those three players listed. Anyway, the worlds kick off in a few hours, so back to actual tournaments.

Worlds post 10/8 - the projections bit

Alright, here's what you've all been waiting for, the first round projections. This is basically a data dump, and I've colour coded a lot of it, so here's the explanations as to what is meant by what.

In headers, date and player should be obvious. Short, medium and long are the size of the data. The first is the last three full months (plus whatever is in this month, which for the entire field will be nothing). The second is the last six full months, the last is the last twelve months (data model automatically filters out all results from more than 365 days ago). The composite is the overall projection. For short/medium/long, green indicates at least than 50 winning legs for both players in that time period. Yellow indicates between 20 and 49 winning legs. Red indicates less. For the purposes of calculating the composite score, green numbers are counted in full, yellow counts half, and red is ignored, basically to limit or exclude data samples that are too small to be completely or even partially reliable. As for the coding of the composite score itself, green indicates three greens or two greens and a yellow, and should be very reliable. Yellow indicates individual scores that count for two or one and a half samples, so something like a green and two yellows, one of each. These numbers should still be OK, but proceed with caution. Red numbers indicate where there is less data again and are only included when there is at least one partially reliable dataset to go with. I would NOT use these for any gambling purposes, they are just there for completion. Where we don't have any data or not enough data even on the full sample size, that is indicated. A N/A in the short/medium/long column indicates that the player on the right does not have any data at all in that period. Finally, all numbers are percentage chances to win FOR THE PLAYER ON THE LEFT.

With all that said, here we go:

Worlds post 9/8 - the last 16 bit

Yeah that title is silly, but it's that time of the year. I've picked out who I think will make the last sixteen in each of the previous posts, now let's try and call it from that stage onwards.

Littler 4-1 Cross - Love Rob's game but he's a clear tier below the people that are a clear tier below Littler. He's got enough to win a set maybe so I'll call him to get one, but that I think is probably the limit.

Price 4-3 Dobey - This could be an absolute fantastic game. Price has won it before, Dobey has gone deep before, they're both playing at a very high level, but I think Gerwyn has just that little bit more.

Bunting 4-2 Searle - Ryan's a very good player, but Stephen's just that level above. Not that far above that he'll just shut Searle out, who I think's got more than enough to keep this fairly close, but Stephen has this.

Clayton 4-3 Smith - These two look so evenly matched based on the year long stats, there's basically nothing to choose between the two. Maybe Ross has an explosive set at the right time and nicks it, but I think Clayton's greater experience in these sorts of situations will see him through.

Humphries 4-2 Aspinall - Don't think Luke will be in serious trouble here, Nathan has got a lot, lot closer to his best this season, but his best is going to be a chunk off of Humphries' normal game.

van Veen 4-2 Wade - Gian's just going to keep on rolling here, Wade will probably have a set or two where he's just steady out in fifteen repeatedly and do enough, but van Veen is just a clearly better player.

Wattimena 4-2 O'Connor - Jermaine has just been putting up convincingly better darts in 2025 than Willie has, and I've already been somewhat controversial in putting him through to this stage in the first place. Game will probably be a bit of a lower level than the others, and I think that it'd be swingy enough to stay moderately close.

Rock 4-1 Noppert - There's not many players who would be able to blow apart Danny's high level consistent play. Josh is one of those players and should push on to the quarter finals with relative ease.

Littler 5-3 Price - These have already had one really close game this season at the Grand Prix, and their Players Championship game was also pretty close. Price is one of those players in that group behind Littler, this might be one where it gets to about 2-2 before Luke pulls away.

Bunting 5-3 Clayton - Think that Stephen will properly avenge their Matchplay game here. Jonny is not that far behind statistically, but there's enough of a differential that I can't look past Bunting, almost said 5-2 but I think Clayton might keep it a bit closer.

van Veen 5-4 Humphries - Got to go with the previous results. Luke's got the better numbers, but it's only slightly, so I'm thinking that Gian completely having Humphries' number this season will continue and van Veen pushes through to the semis.

Rock 5-1 Wattimena - If this plays out as it has for Jermaine then it's been a fine run, but this looks about the natural limit, Josh has been in this sort of situation a lot more all year and there is a pretty signifigant difference in numbers, so I think this is the closest we get to a blowout in this round.

Littler 6-2 Bunting - In a repeat of last year's semi final, I think Bunting keeps things a bit closer - but not much closer. That one didn't feel like a 6-1 game, but it's hard to think that if this half goes to seedings that Stephen gets much more out of the game. Maybe 6-3 I could agree with.

Rock 6-4 van Veen - In terms of the raw numbers, these are very close, and in terms of the number of times they've both been deep in majors, it's pretty even as well. More or less can't be separated as third favourite for the tournament either. But I'm thinking that maybe Gian has a harder run catch up to him, and that he's not really done anything at all at this venue prior to this event also catches up to him. Josh has just been around for that little bit longer and I think that counts for just enough.

Littler 7-4 Rock - I really, really cannot look past Luke defending his title (although, as indicated in a previous post, I would not be touching him outright at what is now odds on more or less everywhere). Josh has way too much talent for this to be a blowout, but Luke is on a different level to everyone right now and over a very long format match like this, there is just too long for Littler to be able to rectify things should he get in a hole early.

Next up - round one projections.

Worlds post 8/8 - the Noppert bit

It's been a tremendous season for Danny, arguably his best outside of the year where he won his UK Open title, and despite not actually having won a title in 2025, his rise up the rankings means that a deep run here gives him the potential of being in the Premier League discussion. This is mainly down to excellent TV form, where Danny made four semi final appearances, five if you include the World Cup. This started with the Masters where he beat Michael Smith, Willie O'Connor and Stephen Bunting, only losing to Humphries. It'd continue at the Grand Prix where he beat Wattimena, Bunting again and Anderson, losing to Humphries again, and a third straight European Championship semi final saw another loss to Humphries, this time having eliminated van Duijvenbode, Aspinall and Pietreczko. The last one would be in the Grand Slam, where he came through the tour card holder qualifier and had a bit of a struggle to get out of the group, but would beat van Gerwen, Lukas Wenig and, for some variety, lose to Luke Littler this time. Earlier exits were seen in the UK Open (a narrow 10-9 defeat to Rob Cross in round five), the Matchplay (hey, you're the sixteenth seed, guess who you get in round two! Wait, it's not Humphries? Oh, it's Gian van Veen instead) and then the Players Championship Finals (losing narrowly 10-8 to Nathan Aspinall). An almost flawless record in terms of not losing to anyone bad and going deep frequently. Noppert would get close to a European Tour title in Hungary, notably beating van Gerwen and Littler, but would come up just short in the final against Niko Springer, but on the floor, he surprisingly wouldn't make a final, although he did get to the last eight or better on seven occasions. He's never been able to get anything going on the world stage (at least in the PDC, he was of course a BDO finalist prior to making the move), but his ultra-consistent style of play, very reminiscent of James Wade for me, means that it's going to take something special to take him out of this one.

Jurjen van der Velde is a relatively young Dutch player who many first noticed when he lost in heartbreaking fashion to Gian van Veen in last season's world youth championship final. That cost him a worlds spot for last year, and any chances of retaining his tour card, but he will now make a debut here after the places on the Development Tour trickled down enough to give him the last available berth through that route. On the Development Tour, Jurjen won two titles, both against Henry Coates in the final, and would get deep enough on enough other occasions to accumulate the cash to qualify. Not being a card holder, van der Velde has had quite a few other opportunities - he also won a Challenge Tour title, beating former European Tour winner Jamie Hughes in the final of that one, part of a good finish to that tour where he also went very deep in the final two events and end up a creditable tenth on that ranking. Unfortunate timing given he got most of his money after the majority of the Pro Tour season was finished, he did get a couple of call ups in Hildesheim but didn't really do anything there. He had some other nice runs - the UK Open was great, reaching the last 32 by beating Tytus Kanik, Bradley Brooks, Keane Barry and Adam Lipscombe before losing to Nathan Aspinall, and that world youth final gave him a Grand Slam spot, where he surprisingly got out of his group after beating Damon Heta in a winner takes all clash, and you can't criticise losing to Luke Humphries in the knockouts. Will be interesting to see what he can do, it's been a rebuilding season but a good one, just a shame that against Noppert he's got one of the tougher draws available.

Nick Kenny is back for a fourth shot at this, twelve months after causing a little bit of a shock by beating Raymond van Barneveld to get to the third round where he'd run into Luke Humphries. Back through the Pro Tour rankings like last year, having made a couple of appearances a few years back after winning the PDPA qualifier, Kenny is comfortably within the world's top 64 and retaining tour card holder status for another year. On the floor, Nick started strong, winning his board twice in the first four events along with matching a career best run to the semi finals of Players Championship 3, losing to Jelle Klaasen at that point having beaten Jermaine Wattimena in the quarters to get there. Nick would play steady stuff, picking up another couple of board wins but never really replicating the rapid start he had to the year. He needed every penny from the Pro Tour as he couldn't add anything at all from the European Tour, only getting one game away on one occasion where he was heavily defeated by Bradley Brooks - indeed, if we had last year's qualifying criteria in a smaller field, it'd probably have had to be the PDPA qualifier again to try to make the field. Kenny won his initial group at the World Masters and was very close to making the main field, beating Brendan Dolan and Jim Williams before falling just short against Jermaine Wattimena, while the Minehead majors were generally fine. He had a bye to round three of the UK Open where he defeated Dominik Gruellich only to draw Gian van Veen in round four, then in the Players Championship Finals, Kenny nicked one against Niels Zonneveld before losing a fairly tight game to Martin Schindler, so both going about as you'd expect. He's not defending any money here, and seems a generally steady and competent player who's had some results on this stage, so should be able to consolidate his ranking nicely here.

Justin Hood won his tour card in January by taking day 2 of Q-School outright, and has looked one of the stronger new card holders in 2025, finishing solidly in the Pro Tour rankings (above Kenny) and having the occasional notable win. It's his first appearance here but he did play the last BDO worlds (the one Wayne Warren won), losing 3-1 in sets to Richard Veenstra in the last 32. Hood's season on the floor started off with a quick board win, adding a second in April, and was typically only being beaten by very good players, or at least well established ones. Shortly after the Matchplay he'd push through to a quarter final where he lost to Lukas Wenig, and while the run in wasn't brilliant, he would pick up a further board win, beating potential second round opponent Danny Noppert in that one. Justin qualified for a couple of Euro Tour events, in Kiel he'd beat Joe Cullen before crashing out to Josh Rock, whereas in Hildesheim, Hood would average alright but lose an opener 6-2 to Ryan Joyce. Justin couldn't get out of his World Masters group, while at the UK Open he'd done just enough early to get a bye to round two, beat a qualifier and then Darren Beveridge, and then draw Rock to end his run at the last 64 stage. He'd done enough on the floor to make Minehead in November, and would cause a bit of an upset by winning his first match against third seed Damon Heta, before only losing in a deciding leg to Andrew Gilding. He's shown good results and good numbers, and particularly if he can get a win here, which he is perfectly capable of doing and ought to be favoured to do, will have given himself a great platform to hold his card into 2027 and maybe beyond.

Ritchie Edhouse I think it's fair to say hasn't really capitalised on a fabulous 2024 which saw him reach the difficult majors for the first time, as well as obviously win the European Championship. It's fine to expect some level of regression, but he's fallen off quite a lot I think it's fair to say. His floor record has been pretty darned average - he had a good run fairly early in the season with a five event spell of three straight board finals, followed by a board win and then a season's best run of a quarter final, but he would follow that up with a run of eight first round defeats in the next ten Pro Tours he played. He picked things up a little bit towards the end of the season, but it was nothing spectacular at all, the upshot being that he was one of the last few people into the Players Championship field and drew Stephen Bunting in round one with the expected reverse for Ritchie. Edhouse was still holding a high enough Pro Tour ranking to get invites to most of the European Tour events, and he would get past seeds three times while he was in that pack by beating Aspinall, Chisnall and Noppert, but wouldn't get past round three in any of those. He did qualify three times later on, getting relatively tough draws in all of them, but he got past Wessel Nijman in Switzerland and then get a second round bye, only to be whitewashed by Raymond van Barneveld. Edhouse wasn't ranked high enough to get a direct path into the World Masters and lost his first game to Darius Labanauskas, and drawing Jermaine Wattimena in round four of the UK Open was maybe a tad unfortunate. Hopefully 2024 doesn't end up being a massive fluke, but it's been aa disappointing year.

Jnnny Tata will make his first Alexandra Palace appearance, having previously been a WDF quarter finalist where he lost a relatively close game to eventual champion Andy Baetens. Tata is here on account of winning the DPNZ Pro Tour, where he won five of the twelve events, including the last three of the season, enough to finish top of the standings with good wins and good performances over the likes of Ben Robb and Haupai Puha. This result would also get him into the ANZ Premier League, where he won one night and finalled another night, getting to the finals day where he would lose out at the semi final stage to Simon Whitlock. Jonny had the option of playing in the ADA tour, which accepts New Zealanders unlike the DPA tour apparently, but chose not to go down that route, but he has been doing good work on the WDF circuit, winning the gold ranked New Zealand Open along with two other tournaments in the season, which sadly weren't on Dart Connect to give us any data. That would have booked him a return to Lakeside, either through the golden ticket or just through the rankings in general, but he got here instead. Tata did take a creditable three legs off Luke Humphries in the Australian leg of the World Series, and go one better against Gerwyn Price in New Zealand, which looks a good game on paper, These would get him through to the World Series Finals, where he lost 6-4 to Ross Smith. So doesn't appear a bad player at all with some world championship experience, Edhouse can't be taking any liberties here.

Ryan Meikle will return for a sixth appearance here, twelve months after being in an explosive second round game with Luke Littler. Ryan, yet to turn 30 despite seemingly being around forever, did just enough on the Pro Tour to book a return, which ought to see him have enough ranking points to retain his card for another season. The Pro Tour was fairly middle of the road - as a top 64 player, he won more first round games than he lost, which is what you'd expect, but couldn't get any really deep runs started, only having made the one semi final ever which was three years ago now. He would get to one quarter final late in the season, notably beating Stephen Bunting there before coming up a touch short against Ross Smith, and did have back to back board wins either side of the World Matchplay. It's steady, but not the spectacular sort of thing that we know he has in him given the peak game we have seen in the past, which is kind of what is needed to push out of the lower ends of the top 64. He made a couple of Euro Tours and beat Joe Cullen in Rosmalen prior to losing to Ryan Searle, but would just win a couple of legs in Kiel against Dirk van Duijvenbode. The upshot is he only played in the two Minehead majors along with the Masters. There he got out of a group and beat Scott Williams before losing to Richard Veenstra, at the UK Open he couldn't repeat last year's run to Saturday, losing his first game to Madars Razma, while the Players Championship Finals only saw him enter as an alternate after Niko Springer withdrew. This didn't give him the top seed as the draw was already done, but it gave him Ross Smith, which amounts to the kind of same thing and Meikle lost 6-1, averaging down in the 70's to show he still has a wildly inconsistent game. It's odd that someone with such variance between his zenith and nadir hasn't fluked even a Pro Tour final yet, it's what he needs to do, and how far he can get here will depend entirely on which Ryan shows up.

Jesus Salate will make his debut here and be the first Argentinian to make his appearance here, and I assume on any World Championship stage. We've had players from South America here before, probably the most well known being Diogo Portela, but Salate is the first from his country. He got here by winning the CDLC tour - a still somewhat fledgling circuit which expanded this season to a grand total of six whole events. Jesus won four of the six, beating former worlds contender Norman Madhoo in three of them for the loss of just one leg, and edged out Sudesh Fitzgerald in the first one of the season. Rashad Sweeting won the other two, but Salate had the points, and looked to be the clear best player on that circuit, averaging a clear five points ahead of Sweeting and eight ahead of anyone else. This was done despite only averaging 82 overall, but you always need to consider the quality of opponent, and he did push up to the high eighties and low nineties on a few occasions, the general overall number looking like it was dragged down by the occasional really bad leg still being enough against opponents that can't finish him off before he gets to a double. Argentina did make their World Cup debut, and surprised a lot of people by getting out of the group stages, defeating both Finland and New Zealand, although against Australia in the last sixteen they would win just one leg. The WDF doesn't seem to have a presence in South America, so this is about all we can go off - against a Meikle on form he should lose and lose fairly comfortably, but we don't really have ridiculously bad players making the field any more even in an expanded format, so if Ryan is on an off day, there's definitely enough here to stand some chance.

This is Noppert's section to lose and that doesn't seem remotely controversial. Jurjen being here is cool but he isn't at Noppert's level. The other three first round games are pretty interesting. Hood I think has been playing the better stuff than Kenny, but Nick's got the experience on the stage, so while I'll take Justin it'll be tight. Then we've got two seeded players who have been really up, down and often not in great form against two steady international qualifiers. I think both the Englishmen will be fine, but either of them losing or at least being pushed into some final set shenanigans wouldn't shock me in the slightest. Danny ought to deal with Justin,  Hood's got enough to take a set but three seems too much of an ask, then I'll take Ryan to beat Ritchie. I think he will just recognise this is a great chance to move up the rankings and bring a good game, and that'll be enough. It wouldn't be enough against the Freeze, but not much is in 2025. Winner - Danny Noppert

It's been a real big breakthrough season for Josh, the only real surprise being that he's not actually in the top ten in the world yet, as he is quite clearly a Premier League quality player statistically. He won his first TV title in the World Cup, defeating a very strong Welsh team with Daryl Gurney, overcoming the disappointment of missing several match darts to win the decider with an 11 darter. In singles, Rock's also made strong progression and you feel that 2026 could be the year that he finally wins a major, heck, it could be very early in 2026, that's just how good he is. Rock would run into Luke Humphries early in the World Masters, but reach the semi final of the UK Open, notably winning a decider against Ross Smith, beating Rob Cross and then Nathan Aspinall, before seemingly running out of steam against James Wade. That stage would be repeated in Blackpool, knocking out Ross Smith, Michael van Gerwen in overtime and then Gerwyn Price, before losing a narrow semi final against Luke Littler. Rock would go out early at both Leicester and Dortmund, losing to Gerwyn Price heavily and then a real surprise against Ricardo Pietreczko respectively, but recover with a quarter final run in the last two events, running Littler close again in Wolverhampton, while at Minehead it'd be Nathan Aspinall who would do the damage. Josh made a pair of European Tour finals in consecutive weeks, losing a deciding leg to Littler in Antwerp and then 8-5 to Humphries in Prague, while on the Pro Tour he got what is a bit surprisingly his only (singles) title of the season when he beat Cameron Menzies in April. He would make another two finals, going all fifteen legs in both and averaging over 110 against Gerwyn Price in the first one. Make no mistake, Rock being hyped as he was three years ago was, in retrospect, a tad on the early side, but he is absolutely a contender here and for my money the best player in this quarter of the draw.

Gemma Hayter might be a contender for most improved player of the season, making it here for a debut despite not actually winning a Women's Series event in 2025 compared to a brace in 2024. Granted, she did claim the last spot here, and it is a bit hard to win titles if Greaves is winning 13 in a row, but Hayter would be one of only three players on that circuit to break the 80 average, did get to a trio of finals, two in the first weekend pushing Beau to a decider in the second one with a 90 average, and losing to Ashton in the other before a last weekend defeat to Greaves again. It would typically take someone good to stop her - of the 24 events, Greaves knocked her out of ten of them, and only on three occasions would she lose to someone who I didn't instantly recognise. Gemma also made her debut at Blackpool, going out in a deciding leg to Fallon Sherrock in the first round, missing a match dart to complete a comeback from 3-0 down, and she also played some WDF events, winning a pair in October where she would beat Aileen de Graaf twice, Lakeside semi finalist Priscilla Steenbergen twice, plus wins over the likes of O'Sullivan, Zijlstra and Wajer across the two events, averaging steadily in the 80's there and notably winning the English Classic for the loss of just one leg. It's kind of a shame she's got one of the hardest draws possible really.

Niko Springer is another player that's made huge breakthroughs in 2025 after generating some buzz in 2024, there he won multiple Development Tour titles to book his tour card for the first time, and he's already up into the top 64 in the world in his first season. This is primarily down to the European Tour, and in particular the event in Hungary, where he'd claim the title with wins over Gian van Veen (how the hell was that a first round match that late in the season), Damon Heta, Rob Cross, Luke Humphries, before winning deciding legs against Josh Rock and Danny Noppert to claim the crown. It's a huge jump to go from basically zero senior events to winning a Euro Tour in the first season, but Niko managed it. There were signs that this was on earlier in the season though, as he made a first final back in May in Rosmalen. Narrowly losing to Jonny Clayton in the final, Springer would beat Wattimena, Bunting, Schindler, Pietreczko and Nijman to get that far, those last three wins all being with ton plus averages. These results came just too late for him to get into the Matchplay, but just early enough to get into the Grand Prix, not really threatening Stephen Bunting in the opening round, and obviously got him to Dortmund, where he'd get a tricky draw against Jermaine Wattimena who was almost unplayable. Niko won a couple of games at the UK Open, beating card holders Cor Dekker and Patrick Geeraets, but would surprisingly lose in round three to Dylan Slevin, missing out on a very winnable section of the draw as a result. Springer beat Gary Anderson and Michael van Gerwen to get out of his group at the Grand Slam, but it was another case of what could have been with a last sixteen loss to Lukas Wenig. The floor was a bit less explosive, only getting a pair of board wins and only doing just enough to make Minehead - which he then withdrew from due to illness. Let's hope that's properly cleared up at this stage, as it would be a huge shame to miss out on someone with his talent and potential.

Joe Comito made his debut here twelve months ago just like Springer did, and was the first match on stage in a pretty low quality tussle with Thibault Tricole, going out 3-1 in sets but it being a match that played a lot closer than the scoreline indicated. He makes his return for a second year, this being on account of winning the DPA Pro Tour. In a weird set up which looks like he had two wins from the last weekend of the previous season carry forward into this one, Joe won one event in each of the last two weekends, but come fairly close to getting more, losing in five finals, the ones in April being particularly close where he lost in a deciding leg to Stuart Coburn twice, then a deciding set to James Bailey. This got Joe into the ANZ Premier League as well, finishing clear bottom, not making a final all season and looking like he lost six of his seven opening round games. Comito didn't play the ADA events, or any WDF events that I can see, and just played the Australian stop on the World Series where he lost to Gerwyn Price, needing more than that to make the finals weekend. We kind of have an idea as to what we're going to be get - he's not going to be bad, but he's not going to be good enough to really threaten someone with real quality, and that's what he's drawn here.

Daryl Gurney remains in the top 32 of the worlds on merit, and ironically is in the same section of the draw as his partner for his third TV title. Gurney, twice a major winner in singles events in the late teens, of course claimed the World Cup which we've gone over already, so I won't repeat myself. On TV outside of that, it's not been great but it's not been awful either. Being the first man on the rankings to not get a straight berth to the main stages of the World Masters, Gurney needed to qualify and lost to Dylan Slevin in the second round, and would follow up that early exit with two others - losing to Danny Noppert in the UK Open (tough draw, we'll allow it, but 10-2 is not brilliant) and while he'd play alright against Price in Blackpool, only losing by the one break, it's still a first game defeat. The back end of the season would be better, so good timing at least - comfortably beating Ross Smith in Leicester before the reverse happened against Dirk van Duijvenbode, while at Dortmund he'd go a round further with wins over Gerwyn Price and Ross Smith again, before running into MvG. That World Cup win got Daryl a first Grand Slam appearance in six years, but in a group which, Littler aside, was tricky but not horrendous, he'd lose all three pool games, before a good recovery at Minehead with a second quarter final of the year, notably beating Stephen Bunting before just about surviving in round three, losing to Price in the quarters. Gurney wasn't bad in Europe, picking up quite a few final day appearances and peaking at a semi final, coming through a couple of very tight games and demolishing Danny Noppert to get up to Littler who returned the favour, while it remains some time since he has won a Pro Tour event, typically not losing early but only reaching a single quarter final for his worst return in over a decade. Suppose the good thing is that the TV form isn't bad and is coming at the right time, as he's going to need it.

Beau Greaves will make a second appearance here, which would have been four in a row but for a silly ruling that playing in the PDC (open) worlds and the WDF (women's) worlds at the same time is verboten, but three years after losing in straight sets to Willie O'Connor (I was there!) she is back having won her tour card and deciding now is the time to move over to the PDC system. Beau qualified for this event through what seems like 27 different ways, the one they actually used being the Development Tour, where Greaves finished second, only behind Cam Crabtree but a lot closer to him than Owen Bates in third. Greaves won three of the first six events to more or less have the worlds spot in the bag by March. She wouldn't add any more and would just make the one further final, but plenty of semi and quarter final runs kept enough distance between her and the chasing pack. The Challenge Tour was also very good, Beau winning the first and third events to get her into quite a few Pro Tour events, peaking with a third round run there in August, only being stopped 6-5 by Luke Littler. Beau would dominate the women's game, currently being on an enormous winning streak in the Women's Series, the only real disappointment being not retaining the Matchplay having lost to Lisa Ashton in the final. She pretty much put the WDF on the back burner after winning the third world title, only showing up on their ranking points table with a Dutch Open semi final, but on the PDC stage there was more - she got through to the last 64 of the UK Open, notably beating Mickey Mansell and ending up on the main stage at that fourth round stage against Luke Humphries, who she would run relatively close but end up the 10-7 second best. Greaves returned to the Grand Slam again, and was moderately close to getting out of the group, losing 5-4 to each of Gary Anderson and Michael van Gerwen, beating potential third round opponent Niko Springer albeit at a stage where the game was a dead rubber, and getting all the way to the world youth finals - sweeping her group, beating Danny Jansen and Liam Maendl-Lawrance in the knockout stages to get to a semi where she would cause huge headlines by knocking out Luke Littler to reach the final. She couldn't beat Gian van Veen, but if anyone needed a sign to say that she's legit on the open stage, that was it.

Callan Rydz has always had a bit of an up and down feel to him, but twelve months after matching his best run of this stage of a quarter final, it's hard to say whether 2025 has been up or down, ending in the top quarter of the Pro Tour qualifiers seemingly without really doing a huge amount to get there. The floor form I think was the best - only losing his first game ten times all season (along with a couple of DNP's), and he started well with an early semi final run in event three, really showing the best of what he had to offer with every game bar one being a 99 or better average (the first round game being "only" 94). However, he'd manage just four more board wins all season, none of which went past the last sixteen stage - not terrible, but you'd like a bit more from someone with three Pro Tour titles. He got into half a dozen Euro Tour events, but would struggle somewhat, losing his first five games and only breaking his duck in Switzerland where he'd beat Connor Scutt, only to draw Luke Humphries in round two. The first round losses were a bit of a mix of tough draws and ones he'd like back, so again, maybe there could have been a bit more there. That was clearly not enough to get him into the tricky majors, and in the easier to qualify for ones, he couldn't make much progress either. He'd lose his first game at the Masters to Jimmy van Schie despite a hundred average, lose his first game at the UK Open to Alan Soutar 6-0, but he would pick up a win at the Minehead return against similarly ranked Kevin Doets, prior to a very narrow defeat to Ryan Searle where he was only just shy of a ton average again and forced it all the way. Last year wasn't his first quarter final at this venue, so he clearly likes the stage, but a repeat, or anything close to it, seems unlikely.

Finally we have Patrik Kovacs, the relatively young Hungarian making his debut here after a pair of appearances in the last two seasons on the WDF stage, where he lost in the first round on both occasions. Patrik is here having won the Hungarian Super League - an event which isn't easily found on Dart Connect given it's seemingly not in the PDC section, but it is there with a bit of digging and in the ten event series, Kovacs reached six finals, winning two and losing four and ending up second in the averages table, ending up with 82 for the tour and only being behind Andras Borbely in that table. This got him to the finals stages, where he'd beat Borbely in a deciding set in the semi after doing the same to World Series qualifier Gyorgy Jehirszki. In the final, Kovacs would again average in the low 80's, winning in straight sets against relative unknown Peter Kelemen to claim an Ally Pally debut. Patrik did try to qualify for the Hungarian Euro Tour stop but lost 6-0 to Nandor Major in the final round with a woeful average down in the 60's, and didn't do much else, not being in the World Cup team, not doing anything in the WDF circuit (or at least not getting deep enough to get any points, their 2024 worlds being the only thing still on his ranking), and while he's still relatively young, he's not been Development Tour levels of young for a few years now, nor did he play any of the Challenge Tour. Hungary's a weird country - it's getting a lot of interest from the PDC despite the players still being somewhat off the level where you feel any of them could legitimately compete with someone on this stage, and that includes Kovacs.

Pretty easy one to pick the winner, but some of the intermediate games are a bit more tricky. Rock over Hayter is obvious, and assuming Springer is close to 100% Niko over Comito is obvious, and while Springer obviously has some talent, I don't see him keeping that close to Rock on this stage. Gurney against Greaves is a fascinating one to call. The numbers are very similar, and while Gurney seems to be gaining form at the right time, you have to think the crowd will be behind Greaves, at least after Daryl's walk on merchant song is done. I think whoever wins that will beat Rydz, who should destroy Kovacs, and then that's another one that'll be close in round two whoever comes through round one. I think that Greaves has a break out party and wins both of them - beat Gurney and I don't think she would have too much to be concerned with in Rydz, the first round game is for me clearly harder even if the averages I quote suggest otherwise. Nobody in that section is touching Rock though - if anyone beats Rock early it will be Springer in a first to three and not whoever in a first to four. But I can't see it. Winner - Josh Rock

And that's the lot. I've given sixteen names - next post will be trying to navigate the last sixteen onwards, then we'll have a look at some projections.

Worlds post 7/8 - the van Gerwen bit

Feels like it's been somewhat of a disappointing season for MvG, with the two Luke's sweeping up pretty much everything, but was it? Working from the floor up, van Gerwen played a very truncated season, playing less than half the events and having a very surprising record of more first round defeats than wins, mostly to opponents he has no business losing to, only having a single run to the quarter finals which saw him miss out on the Players Championship Finals for the first time since its inception. The European Tour did see him pick up a win in Munich, running over Huybrechts, Searle, Joyce, Rock and then van Veen in the final, but again only played half the events, not doing too much else outside of that win with just a semi final to add to that tournament win. That would get him into Dortmund, where (apart from the worlds final last year) he had his best major run of 2025, reaching the semi finals with wins against Nijman, Dobey and Gurney, before falling to van Veen by the odd break. Other majors were generally well below par - losing in the last sixteen in the Masters to Dimitri having been a leg away from the match, he got through a real tough first game draw at the UK Open against Dirk only to be stunned by Robert Owen, while at Blackpool he got through RvB as you would expect, but would lose a lead against Josh Rock in the second round and eventually lose in overtime. Dirk would then avenge that UK Open loss in the first round of the Grand Prix, while at the Slam, he won his group despite a loss to Niko Springer, but would go down 10-6 in the first knockout stage to Danny Noppert. Unranked events did help him somewhat, he won the World Series finals with what should be in contention for best tournament performance, beating both Lukes (including Littler in the final), along with the deadly young pair of players Rock and Nijman as well as former world champion Rob Cross, but he'd do basically nothing in the circuit events, skip the World Cup, and miss the playoffs in the Premier League for only the second time ever. He's clearly still a top player, but his level is not what it was and there's so many more players who are at the level he is at now than there were before.

Tatsunami is a relatively unknown player from Japan, who I don't have a great deal on in my database, so this write up could be interesting. He's qualified through winning the Steel Darts Japan event, something I believe is a relatively new series (but happy to be fact checked on that), where in an eclectic field of new and old names, he won a pair of events in September, where he managed a good average in the high 90's in the opening round, hit a twelve in a deciding leg in the quarters, come from a set behind in the semi final prior to being the beneficiary of missed darts to break and throw for the match from his opponent in the final. Fair to say that he did avoid a lot of the bigger names in the event, Keita Ono was in the semis, Seigo Asada made the quarters, while Tomoya Goto probably should have beaten the other eventual finalist but didn't. Still, you can only beat what's in front of you. Tatsunami did play some of the Asian Tour, winning event six on home soil against Asada in the final, and made a further semi final an two quarters. This got him into the Asian Championship, but in a group where A beat B beat C beat A, he had the worst leg difference and didn't qualify for the knockout stages. He's been around for a little bit, winning on the Asian Tour in 2023 and winning some fairly big unranked WDF event last season, but this looks like a first round match we won't need to deliberate over that much.

Willie is just outside the top 40 that got straight iinvites and finished up second on the Pro Tour rankings behind only European Tour winner Niko Springer to bring his record of consecutive appearances here up to nine. O'Connor had a steady season with a fair few highlights, the best work arguably being done on the Pro Tour, where he opened with a pair of quarter final runs in the early part of the season, going a little bit quieter in the mid season but without getting horrible results, then hitting form at the last time, with the last ten events starting with a pair of semi final finishes, only being beaten by Gerwyn Price and Stephen Bunting, both in deciding legs, and the last two events would be even stronger, reaching the final in the penultimate event where he was 6-5 up against Chris Dobey but lost the last three legs, then ended with a third semi, being stopped on that occasion by Luke Woodhouse. That good form throughout the season would see him finish in the top quarter of seeds for Minehead, but he would be possibly surprisingly beaten by Ricardo Pietreczko in the opening round. He got into quite a lot of the European Tour events, playing in nine with a best run being to the quarter finals in the Netherlands, getting in as an alternate for a seed, beating Boris Krcmar and Ritchie Edhouse prior to running into Luke Humphries, but despite that good record of qualification he'd finish just a few spots outside of the qualification line for what would have been a first European Championship in five years. He made the main Masters field and knocked out Rob Cross before losing in straight sets (but all deciding legs, oddly enough) to Danny Noppert, and the UK Open remained somewhat of a happy hunting ground, where he beat Tom Sykes, Scott Williams and Mensur Suljovic to get to the last sixteen, only losing by the odd braek to Nathan Aspinall. A strong player who seems to be hitting form at the right time, he's got the experience and quality to maybe cause some surprises here.

Krzysztof Kciuk is the veteran (although surprisingly younger than Ratajski) Polish player and former tour card holder who'll make a third appearance here sixteen years after making a debut where he lost to Haruki Muramatsu in a prelim, and two years after his last appearance when he lost in straight sets to Connor Scutt. Kciuk makes it here having won through a large field in the Polish qualifier, needing to come through eight rounds to book his return, notably beating Tytus Kanik along the way and needing to navigate a last leg decider at the quarter final stage. It's been a quiet year otherwise, he did try getting onto the European Tour in all but two of the qualifiers, and was one off a spot in the main event twice, losing to Petr Krivka and Dalibor Smolik, unfortunately having been a break up in both events. He did play the Challenge Tour weekend which was in Germany, being eligible having played Q-School where he got to the second stage, put himself in an OK position with a day 1 quarter final run up to Karel Sedlacek, but would follow that up with three first round losses. In that Challenge Tour weekend, Kciuk did OK, getting to the last sixteen a couple of times, picking up wins over the likes of Stefan Bellmont, Michael Unterbuchner and Jarno Bottenberg, but couldn't go deep enough to do anything like threatening any Pro Tour call ups. He did play some WDF, getting alright runs in Budapest and getting through the groups of their World Masters in a run to the last 32. He's not bad, but I doubt he scores heavily enough or has been playing a high enough standard of opponent to really cause O'Connor too may problems.

Peter Wright seems to have been at the stage where he's been threatening to drop down the rankings like a stone, only to pull off some result to keep things ticking over, pretty much since his last world title. 2023 it was that European Championship that's just dropped off the rankings hence the #30 seeding. Last year it was a Euro Tour. This year it's, er, well after that quarter final run twelve months ago, it's not been much of anything. TV has not been good - he beat Kevin Doets from a set down at the Masters only to lose to Stephen Bunting. At the UK Open he lost to Luke Littler first game - tough draw and he made it 10-9 to be fair. At Blackpool he was down early against Wattimena, he did pull back a break but still lost 10-8, then at Leicester he went out to defending champion Mike de Decker. He lost to Ross Smith at Dortmund, did not qualify for the Grand Slam for the first time in over a decade, and while he did nick a win against Joe Cullen in the Players Championship Finals, it would be one and done as he lost to James Wade. Are there any signs at lower levels that he can halt what could be a further decline in 2026? Well he did make four Euro Tour quarter finals, but bear in mind he was seeded for all of them and he won't get that luxury going forward - heck, he may not even get the Pro Tour invites if he's not careful. Quite a few opening round losses, although most were to players who are better or likely not much worse at this point, only one of them is what I'd describe as bad. On the floor Wright did get to one final, but that was back in April and he couldn't get close to Cameron Menzies, and his only other run to a quarter final was even earlier. Since then he's missed a few events (which I'm not sure he can afford to), had an opening losing record, and only pulled out a singular board win in nearly 20 attempts, and even in that one he only played one good opponent, needing every leg against Ross Smith and going out to Thibault Tricole. His scoring is still above 90, and he is not defending much of anything here (two years ago being the one where he lost in straight sets to Jim Williams), but with him being outside the Matchplay race spots right now, and with him nearer 60 than 50 already, I do kind of half wonder if the thought isn't in his head to go out on the stage where he had his biggest successes. Would be sad to see but I do think there's a non-zero possibility of it.

Noa is back for a second year, after making a losing debut twelve months ago to Kevin Doets. van Leuven is here after finishing fourth in the Women's Series, picking up a pair of titles in Rosmalen along with a further final in the last event of the season in Wigan. Noa was like everyone else a mile behind Beau Greaves, and also finished behind Sherrock and Ashton, but Beau and Lisa qualifying through other methods saw the qualifying spots slide down far enough to allow a return to the big stage. A former Challenge Tour winner, I've got nothing in the database except that match against Doets. van Leuven did play Q-School, entering at stage 1 but not being able to progress past the last 64 stage on any day with the only notable win being against fellow last time debutant Romeo Grbavac. That did allow van Leuven to play the Challenge Tour, but this was limited to the one continental weekend, and resulted in just one run to the top 64 and a 3-5 overall match record, putting in one very good showing against Andy Hamilton but otherwise averaging in the seventies half the time, indeed the Women's Series average, which while second behind only Beau, was only 81, and while the usual quality of opponent influences averages caveat applies, on that series there were too many matches that saw drops into the seventies, or even worse. If you're not even averaging an eighteen dart leg over a large sample, then how much chance you'd have of winning a game on this stage is very questionable.

Kim Huybrechts remains safely in the tour card positions, but is still clearly some way off his best ranking, and after a brief flirtation of getting back towards the top 32 two or three years ago, there's a distinct lack of indicators to say that he's capable of getting back towards there, and while he qualified for here perfectly safely through the Pro Tour rankings, there weren't any obvious standout results like that miracle European Tour final we had to finish 2024. On the floor, Kim did not make a single quarter final, a run which extends all the way back to when he last won on the floor early in 2023, and that seems like something that most players would do by accident at some point, especially over a two year period. Indeed, Huybrechts only won his board once all season, and that was right back in the second event of the year, a little bit against the run of play given a 3-9 round one start to the year. Kim wouldn't recover to an even record on that front, but would have a decent enough record in terms of getting to board finals, even if he was not winning them. This record saw him miss the Players Championship finals by six grand making for a first miss since he's held a tour card. He at least did a lot better in qualifying in Europe than last year, playing in six of the fourteen events, getting into the first as an alternate, beating a local qualifier then only just losing to MvG, losing narrowly to Ritchie Edhouse and Cameron Menzies, before getting another alternate call up, beating Ian White then being whitewashed by Ross Smith. He'd use the host nation qualifier to make Antwerp and just beat Lukas Wenig prior to a loss to James Wade, and finish in Hungary with a best run to round three, where as an alternate yet again he'd beat Andreas Harrysson and then potential opponent here Peter Wright to make the final day, losing to Wade again. He did little on TV, beating Tom Bissell in the Masters before losing to Gabriel Clemens, and he'd run into Wenig again at the UK Open, outlasting him in that one before picking up just a couple of legs in a one sided defeat against Damon Heta. The numbers are not dreadful, but they are down and he in no way has a false ranking at this point in time.

Arno Merk is going to make his debut on this stage after winning through the German area qualifier. This has seen a few good players make it in the past and the somewhat convoluted system now extends to several adjacent countries. Merk won that last couple of events in what is now called PDC Europe Next Gen in Hildesheim, which would be enough to get him into the Super League final stage. Getting somewhat of a favourable group, featuring Oliver Müller then four other players I've not heard of, Arno ended with a very good 9-1 record, averaging steadily in the 80's and breaking into the 90's once. This pushed him into the final stages, in which he started with a pair of 90 averages again, in the mid range against Kevin Troppmann and being marginally below a ton against Yorick Hofkens. A semi final win against Jarod Becker was comfortable, but Daniel Klose would be tougher in the final, Merk prevailing 8-6, but was hanging on a bit at the end having been 5-2 up. Arno did try to get on the European Tour a few times, but ended up no better than being two games away in any of them, so couldn't repeat a previous appearance last year where he was given the dubious honour of playing Luke Littler with inevitable results. Arno played the Challenge Tour a fair bit, and had a few cashes, a best run being a quarter final where he lost out to Dave Pallett, it wasn't much but it did get him into a pair of Pro Tours in Hildesheim, where he at least won his first game in both and got the scalp of Scott Williams. The limited numbers we have aren't good with a horrid lack of five visit finishes, and there's not enough evidence at lower levels outside my database that the game is there yet. He is still relatively young though and he did take a big break from the sport, and was highly touted as a youngster - this isn't actually his worlds debut, having played Lakeside way back in 2011!

I'm going to go with a controversial couple of shouts here. I don't think any of the unseeded players will get particularly close in round one, but I'm going with shocks in round two. Kim Huybrechts beating Peter Wright might not be a huge shock and he has beaten him on this stage when he was last the defending champion, and did win their matchup this year, but it might look like it. O'Connor over van Gerwen would be much more of a legitimate surprise, but it's one I think might happen. Willie's hugely experienced at this stage, is coming into form at the right time, the numbers are good, and it is not as if van Gerwen has been tearing things up in 2025. There's usually at least one real surprise, and I'm calling it here. And frankly, if he can beat Michael, he'd have no issues against Huybrechts. Winner - Willie O'Connor

It's been a moderately quiet year for Anderson on the stage, although the underlying statistics as well as successes on the lower circuits indicate that he is still very much a force to be reckoned with. On TV he's not managed a great deal, with opening game losses to Dimitri van den Bergh in the Masters and Jonny Clayton at the UK Open. He'd do a bit better at the Matchplay where he got off the mark with a win against Luke Woodhouse prior to pushing Stephen Bunting to overtime, while at the Grand Prix he'd have a best run of the season, edging past Barney before routing a below par Joe Cullen, prior to defeat to Danny Noppert. He'd lose an opening game in Dortmund to Cameron Menzies and not get out of a tough but not horrible group at the Grand Slam, while in the Players Championship Finals, Gary beat Mario Vandenbogaerde but would lose in the second round to Ricardo Pietreczko. As mentioned, lower tours were good - starting with an early semi final on the European Tour, before getting a win after a break of a few tourneys in Sindelfingen, notably beating van Veen and van Duijvenbode and not dropping a leg in the final to Andrew Gilding. He'd only play a couple more before reaching a second final, renewing his rivalry with Gerwyn Price who'd take that title, before deciding his work is done and skipping the remaining events. He missed a fair few Pro Tours as well, but would add another title there, with an 8-3 victory against surprise finalist Adam Lipscombe. The only other thing to mention would be a loss at the World Cup - drawing the Netherlands would not be ideal and he probably wasn't with the strongest partner he could get, but not losing a leg was a big surprise. There's still a lot of talent in there, but with lack of stage results and turning 55 during the course of the tournament, you might question, five years since his last major final, whether there's enough to make a huge impression in a lengthy, long format tournament such as this one.

Hunt will make a fourth appearance here, and his first for four years, being without a tour card for a couple of them and not making enough of an impact on the circuit when he has had a card to qualify directly either. However, he got through the PDPA qualifier for the second time in his career, getting comfortable wins over Max Czerwinski and Thomas Lovely with 90 averages, before getting what might have looked like a bit of finishing line syndrome in the final against Tytus Kanik, where a 5-1 lead became a decider at 6-6, but breaking in the decider to book a big stage return. The floor was not terrible, with more wins than losses in the first round, and he did pick up two of his best results in the last three events, with a board win in PC32 where he pushed Luke Littler fairly close to get to the quarters, and a final to add to it in the last event of the season. Prior to that however, he only made two board finals all season, another one quite late in PC29, and one in the first event of the season. So while he wasn't losing in the first round that much, he had an enormous streak of events where he'd either do that, or lose in the second round, although to be somewhat fair, on a scan of the match record he was generally going out to players who are clearly better than he is right now. He couldn't get much going on the European circuit either, going 1-2 in final qualifying rounds to make just the single event, this early in the season in Göttingen, where he lost to Martin Schindler (again, not the easiest draw) 6-2. He went out early in the Masters, but did have a bit of a cameo in the UK Open, winning against Maik Kuivenhoven before getting a bye after de Graaf withdrew late to get into the pot with the big guns. There he'd lose 10-7 to Ryan Searle, not the worst scoreline and the averages were basically the same. Adam had a lot of hype about him when he was still around the Development Tour ranks, but he's in his thirties now and is still yet to show enough to make anyone think he'll be able to stick on the main PDC circuit.

Connor Scutt had a very strong 2023 and 2024, making a couple of Pro Tour finals in that period, but 2025 has been a lot quieter and he only just sneaked into the field as the last Pro Tour qualifier. He shouldn't be anywhere near that marker, but form just collapsed mid season and it only just recovered partially for him to make a third appearance here in a row. Scutt, having ended last season with a major quarter final at Minehead, looked like he might have been able to push towards the top 32, but started with a really changeable Pro Tour effort, making three board finals with one win in the first ten events but not winning a match outside of that, and it would take him until the last six events of the season for him to make another board final, doing so on back to back days in Leicester but not actually being able to win either of them. That left him outside of the Players Championship Finals equation by over five grand, and making three European Tour events, two where he lost in the first round to Gian van Veen and Callan Rydz sandwiching a win against Ritchie Edhouse prior to a second round defeat to Luke Humphries, would be needed to secure the Ally Pally place. He still had something going at the start of the season, where he made the last 32 in the UK Open, beating Berry van Peer and notably Gerwyn Price in the fourth round 10-9, before putting in another good showing but being a bit short in a 10-7 loss to Damon Heta, and he showed signs of getting things back together by coming through the Grand Slam tour card holder qualifier in style, averaging nearly a ton in a deciding leg win over James Hurrell and a whitewash of Peter Wright, before averaging 104 and 103 in another 5-0 against Adam Hunt and then in the final round against Mike de Decker. Connor then continued that good play to get through the group stage - everyone lost to Littler there but Sedlacek and Gurney is not a trivial ask. That got him into the knockout stage where he was able to take Josh Rock all the way to a deciding leg. Those runs might be enough to convince me that whatever was going on mid season may well be behind him, and that the numbers listed might be a touch of an underestimate.

Simon Whitlock is perhaps a little bit of a surprise returning player, having not qualified last year and losing his tourcard, but the former finalist is back, making a seventeenth appearance here following his win in the ANZ Premier League. A new idea, Whitlock was simply invited which seems a tad unfair to everyone else who had to earn their way in, but whatever, and he wasn't able to win any of the seven nights, but did lose in three finals, giving him the points to make the finals night, where he defeated Jonny Tata 8-3 then Raymond Smith 10-7 to claim the title. We're then kind of limited beyond that - Whitlock didn't play any DPA events, and didn't play any ADA events either, but he did play the first Challenge Tour weekend, making a couple of quarter finals. He was an interesting pick for the World Cup alongside Damon Heta, winning through their group with ease and crushing Argentina before losing to Germany, he did play the seniors' worlds only to lose in the first round, and he was involved in the World Series, losing in the legs in his part of the world to Josh Rock and Chris Dobey, while at the finals event he'd draw Luke Littler, which he kept moderately close but ultimately couldn't get the win. The numbers we've seen have hit the 90's on quite a few occasions, but seem more in the 80's, which is kind of what we saw towards the end of his tour card run, so it doesn't look like he's regressed much, but from a spot where he lost his card, it's not encouraging given he's playing someone who does have one.

Jermaine Wattimena's continued his impressive resurgence in 2025, and is now well back within the seeds for this event, backing up a 2024 which saw him win his first major final with his first PDC title wins, something that's been long overdue. These came on the floor - first threatening in June where he got to a final only to lose to Stephen Bunting, he would finally get over the line a month later, defeating Lukas Wenig who was also looking for his first title in that tournament. One quickly became two, as Jermaine would take it all the way in October, beating Nathan Aspinall very comfortably in the final. The last few weekends saw a further semi final and two quarter finals, while he did start the season with two quarter finals in the first three events, showing solid form throughout the season. On the European Tour it was a little bit more mixed, getting to a couple of quarter finals later in the season, but only getting to the final day five times, with a few more first round exits than I'd have expected. While he couldn't back up last year's run to the European Championship final, TV wasn't too bad, with the highlight being the Players Championship finals, where he went all the way to the semi final - coming in as the sixth seed, he defeated Wesley Plaisier and Ryan Joyce fairly easily, come through tight encounters with Ryan Searle and James Wade, before being heavily routed by Nathan Aspinall. Earlier in the year he got through the qualifiers to make the main Masters field, where he'd be drawn against Josh Rock, and he made his best UK Open run in a while, getting to round five where drawing Littler would limit how far he could go. He returned to the Matchplay and Grand Prix for the first time in several years, beating Peter Wright in the former but that'd be the only win, getting Littler in round two where he had a decent midway lead only to lose in overtime, and Danny Noppert won a deciding leg at Leicester. He'd get to the second round in Dortmund, perhaps surprisingly losing to Ricardo Pietreczko, and in unranked events make a return to the World Series finals, where he'd lose a scrappy one to Kevin Doets, having turned over Humphries in the Dutch leg of the tour. Still very much on an upward trajectory with the title hoodoo gone, he could very much beat his best run here (which was to the third round last season).

Dominik Gruellich is a pretty young German player who was able to win a tour card for the first time in January, and has made very much an up and down start to a full senior career. Just about making it in through the Pro Tour rankings, more or less the entirety of his ranking money came from the Pro Tour, after hitting just the singular European Tour event all season, losing out to Luke Woodhouse in Göttingen. The floor was a slow start for sure, picking up just the one win in the first eleven events, then he hit a little bit of a purple patch with five straight board finals - one of which he won, but the other he took all the way to the final somehow, beating top 32 players in Dirk van Duijvenbode, Michael Smith and Daryl Gurney along the way, he would lose to a red hot Jonny Clayton in the final, but he was so near to being the next German player to win a title before Gabriel Clemens does. The next dozen or so events would be so-so, but he finished much as he started with a string of seven defeats to end the season. A win in any one of those events would have got him to Minehead, but as things turned out there was a four way tie for 63rd to 66th, so he was the only player not to make the field on countback. Harsh, but they've got to have some sort of tiebreaker. Still eligible to play the Development Tour, he had a pretty good season there, finishing in the top ten of the rankings having claimed two titles, one convincingly over fellow tour card holder Leon Weber, and the other just about against Beau Greaves. This'd get him into the world youth championship, where he was an early casualty against Lee Lok Yin, but he did get a couple of stage wins at the UK Open, beating former Pro Tour winner Danny Jansen and Andreas Harrysson before losing to Nick Kenny. It's been a season where he's needed to adapt and he'll have learned a lot, I don't think he has a great chance of doing anything here given the draw but it'll be an important part of his learning curve.

Scott Williams is still in the world's top 40, but looks very likely to drop from those spots once the semi final money from two years ago drops off after this tournament. What's he done in 2025? There's been some moments, particularly on the Pro Tour. A former winner at that level when he didn't have a tour card, the number of first round defeats were fairly limited so the prize money kept ticking over, and he had several deep runs, reaching four semi finals, and going one further on another occasion to reach a second career Pro Tour final, only to lose to James Wade in a game where he averaged well but just couldn't win too many legs. That mix of consistency and flashes of quality would get Scott to the Players Championship Finals comfortably in the top half of the seeds, where he'd beat Ian White as you might expect, and then lose to Josh Rock, as you also might expect. The European Tour was almost a total loss, making just the one event where he did at least beat Wessel Nijman, but Josh Rock would do him again in round two, so we're just looking at TV events for what else he's done at this stage. The World Masters was a bit disappointing, it wasn't the easiest qualifying section but he lost his first game to Ryan Meikle, while the UK Open ended up being one and done, he'd get the scalp of Wessel Nijman again here, but it'd be another case of play well and just fall short in round four, averaging in the high 90's but losing 10-7 to Willie O'Connor. The numbers typically look fine, the results have come in patches, so while it feels like he's had a quiet season and while his ranking is going to naturally fall somewhat, I don't think the year's been bad at all.

Paolo Nebrida will come back for a fourth straight appearance, twelve months after getting a first win at Ally Pally, where he manufactured a win against Jim Williams before shocking Ross Smith with a 3-0 win, prior to going out at the last 32 stage to Jeffrey de Graaf. Paolo maybe didn't have the best season this year as he did previously, only finishing seventh on the Asian Tour, but there are enough spots to go around for him to be back here. On that tour he picked up two titles, both deciding leg victories against Paul Lim and Tomoya Goto, but he'd only make one other final. Paolo got out of the Asian Championship groups but would lose in the last sixteen, and he also made a World Cup debut, knocking out Belgium in the group stages only to run into Wales in the first knockout round where they lost heavily against a strong opponent. He has played the occasional WDF event as well, getting a decent run going in the Korea Open, losing out in the quarter finals to Lourence Ilagan. We know he's going to be fairly solid, but he's up against a fairly solid opponent as well, so he' s got chances, but it'll be tough.

Who comes through here? Gary I think will be fine in round one. Scutt I think is back playing at a higher level than Whitlock is at right now so should get through. Jermaine is a lot better than Gruellich, whereas Scott against Paolo might be the closest one, but I'll take Williams. Can't see Scott giving Jermaine much trouble in the second round given the form Wattimena is in. Scutt against Anderson would be a different question. Gary is clearly the better player, but if we are back at or near peak Scutt, then this could end up being pretty close. I'll just about take Anderson to make it an all seeded third round, but I just think that Jermaine is in too good form and with too much confidence for Gary to come out of this section. Winner - Jermaine Wattimena

As a side note, I've noticed that my database is missing the Asian Tour weekend in Mongolia. I don't know if that wasn't on DC or if it's an oversight, but I'll investigate it now, and while it may mean that some of the numbers for anyone in the field that got to a quarter or better there might be inaccurate, it's before I throw up any projections, so at least nobody is going to have bet based on incomplete data.

Worlds post 6/8 - the Wade bit

Pretty darned good year all round for Wade, who's got himself back up into the top ten after some solid major performances which will have thrown him into Premier League conversations. James, like so many players, has hit a Littler shaped wall, and did so in the first three majors of the year. That said, if two of those were finals, you're probably not going to be that concerned. Wade had a moderately easy run to the final day of the UK Open, where he got a deciding leg win against Luke Humphries and demolished Josh Rock, but ran out of steam and was heavily routed by Littler. At the Matchplay, Wade took advantage of an early defeat for Humphries, cruising past Cullen and Nijman, before nicking a close one against van Veen and an even closer one against Clayton which went into added time - of course, he lost to Littler, but 18-13 with a 101 average is pretty respectable. He'd go out early at the Grand Prix and Slam, losing in the first round to Cullen and not being able to recover from a shock group defeat to Stefan Bellmont, but the other two events were quarter final runs, finally getting the better of Littler in Dortmund only to lose to Humphries in the next round (tough draw eh), while his Players Championship Finals path was relatively comfortable until he clashed against Jermaine Wattimena, who won by the odd break. His European Tour form was solid, reaching four semi finals including three in back to back events, losing them to Littler, Anderson, Rock and Humphries not leaving much on the table, and while he did skip a fair few Pro Tour events, he did win one of them, running out a convincing winner over Scott Williams in Leicester in June, and backed that up with five further trips to the quarter final stages. He's playing at a better level than he has done in several years with a style that makes him pretty hard to beat, more so in leg play than set play, but will still be a danger to do some damage here as he will look to end a run of three straight early defeats on the worlds stage.

Azemoto will make his return here twelve months after making his debut, which saw him take Wesley Plaisier to a deciding set in a scrappy match, just coming out of it on the wrong side. Ryusei ended up fourth in the Asian Tour rankings to seal his return, claiming three titles on that tour, the most notable one being in Kuala Lumpur where he managed a staggering 111 average in the final. Azemoto has been pretty hit and miss on that tour - his overall averages were barely in the top 20 (and even if we added a reasonable matched played requirement, they wouldn't be in the top ten), and while he did win some events and go deep in quite a few others, there were a fair few early defeats playing some bang average stuff. In the Asian Championship he got through the group stage and won his first knockout game but would lose to Paul Lim in the quarter finals, while he did get some TV experience through playing in the World Cup, where after beating the seeded Croatia team, they only needed to beat Switzerland to advance to the knockouts (or get to a deciding leg to force some sort of tiebreaker), they lost 4-1. Ryusei surprisingly didn't take part in the Steel Darts Japan tour, which might have given useful extra experience, but he has dabbled in some WDF events, winning the Selangor Open, although that's only a bronze ranked event. Maybe against some other opponents Azemoto would have a fighting chance, but this is a bad match up for someone who's probably going to need that sixth visit to win legs more often than not.

Ricky Evans will make an eleventh appearance here having just crept back into the world's top 40 following a moderately successful season. Ricky, best known for bangers of shirts and quick play more than actual results, made it two years in a row with a deep TV run, getting to the quarter finals of the Grand Slam. Qualifying through the tour card holder qualifier, Evans won deciding legs against Gerwyn Price and Stefan Bellmont to qualify for the knockouts with a match to spare (so the loss to possible second round opponent Wade was a dead rubber), then in the knockouts he just outlasted Luke Woodhouse to reach that quarter final. Price would win the rematch comfortably, but that result was a big bonus after after a fairly early loss at the Masters (beat Sedlacek, lost to Menzies) and similar at the UK Open (beat Clemens, lost to Chisnall). To get into anything else would need some form at lower levels, and it wasn't really there. Making three European Tour events, Ricky picked up a win against Barney in one event, then made the final day in Hildesheim, beating a tough pairing in Cullen and Rock prior to losing to Chisnall in the last sixteen. The Pro Tour saw just a single quarter final, but at least he didn't have the big losing streak he had towards the end of last year at any point, getting enough to make Minehead with a fair bit of room to spare, but drawing Danny Noppert and losing in the first round. Evans has a solid record here, but reaching the third round for a third straight year might be a tough ask.

Leung made a debut here two years ago, which saw him make a terrific comeback against Gian van Veen prior to a loss to Gabriel Clemens. He returns after a moderately successful Asian Tour campaign, finishing just outside the top five in the rankings but high enough to book a return here. On that Asian Tour, Leung picked up a pair of wins and three final defeats, the last final coming in the final event of the season but the other four coming somewhat earlier on. This got him into the Asian Championship, coming through the groups and winning the opening knockout game prior to a loss to Sakai in the quarter final stages. He was one half of the Hong Kong team at the World Cup which got the dream draw of the USA and Bahrain, winning both group games and then beating Sweden in the knockout stages tp get through to the quarter finals, where they would lose to Wales. There's not much else I can see that happened in 2025, he didn't get a pick for the Bahrain stop of the World Series and I can't see any WDF events either. Still pretty young (has some Dev Tour data in my database), he's got a pretty decent peak game, so could give Ricky some issues if he shows up.

Cammy's now full time on the darts, and will come into the tournament as a seeded player for the first time, looking to improve on last year's surprise early exit to Leonard Gates. The floor has been just fine - picking up a second title in April with a big win over Peter Wright, this coming just after a final defeat and a semi final run in the previous two events, and he'd already won through to another final earlier in the season in Rosmalen. After that however, Menzies didn't really threaten the scorers, he did pick up seven board wins, but couldn't take any of them further than the last sixteen stages. The European Tour was fine, although again he didn't look like actually improving to win at that higher level, getting to a pair of quarter finals and winning past the seed on four other occasions, he'd beat the likes of Heta, de Decker, Wade, Bunting, Cross and Ross Smith over the course of the season, but the quarters remains the limits of what he's done on that tour and both quarter final defeats saw Cameron put in mediocre performances. On TV, he got himself into the Masters main draw with a win over van Veen and would beat Chisnall to move to the second round where he lost heavily to Nathan Aspinall, and he reached a new best of round five in the UK Open after beating Dom Taylor and Mike de Decker, before losing a decider to James Wade. A Matchplay debut saw a real disappointing loss to Danny Noppert, but he rebounded with a quarter final run in Leicester, eliminating Dobey and Cross before running into Luke Humphries. The end of the season would be a bit of a slow down however, Dortmund was solid with a win over Anderson and nearly eliminating Humphries but losing a deciding leg, but he'd miss the Slam and lose his opening game at Minehead 6-1 to Adam Lipscombe. Absolutely a dangerous player who can match up well with anyone, but also a player who can go completely missing, make bizarre counting errors, and everything in between.

Charlie Manby's an incredibly exciting prospect, who makes his debut here having been around the Development Tour for some time, but exploding in form in 2025, who made a lot of headlines earlier in the season when he hit some absurd average (over four legs) on that tour. Charlie finished fourth in the rankings, only behind Greaves and two tour card holders, doing so by picking up a title in September, a further final earlier in the season, and multiple runs to the quarter and semi final stages. This got him to the world youth championship, where he got to the last sixteen and forced Luke Littler to a deciding eleventh leg with over a hundred average. Charlie didn't just play the Dev Tour however, he got into the top 30 of the Challenge Tour, peaking at a pair of semi finals, which would be just enough to get him into a handful of Pro Tour events, picking up the scalps of Rob Cross and Andrew Gilding. Manby was in that weird World Masters group that had just two players, losing to Ryan Meikle, and having also got into the UK Open through the previous year's Dev Tour, there he'd lose his opening game to Aden Kirk. He didn't quite get enough on the Development Tour this year to win a tour card, but is certainly capable of announcing his arrival on the senior circuit here and now, and will surely be one of the names to watch at Q-School early in the new year.

Campbell will make his seventh straight appearance here, having a best run of round three where he eliminated James Wade prior to hitting the debuting Littler two years ago. Getting here through the Pro Tour, Matt's not had the greatest of seasons, but there were sporadic highlights, the main one probably being the retention of his North American Championship, where as the top seed he defeated Jason Brandon and Stowe Buntz, before winning the final against fellow Canadian Jim Long. He couldn't use the worlds spot that had on offer due to PDC rules, but did enough on the Pro Tour to make another appearance and give himself a half chance of retaining his tour card for 2026. That's a touch surprising given what he actually did on the floor - he had a pretty torrid time, racking up twenty first round defeats in the first 28 events he played, but ironically finished off with a pair of board wins in the last two events having not won one all year (and only getting to that stage twice in the first place). He's always seemed a better stage player however, and on the Euro Tour he did more damage, qualifying for four seems about right, but he got past the seed in three of them, beating Peter Wright (and interestingly Cameron Menzies in the first round), Stephen Bunting, and then in Leverkusen he'd beat both Ross Smith and James Wade to reach a quarter final, narrowly losing to eventual finalist Damon Heta. Matt repeated a career best fourth round appearance at the UK Open with a win over Nathan Girvan, but couldn't convert in what looked like a winnable game against Alan Soutar, while Darius Labanauskas would knock him out relatively early in the World Masters. Very capable at his best, we've just not seen that much of it in 2025.

Matt will face Adam Sevada in an all North American clash, the American having a breakout year in 2025 to qualify for a world championship for the first time. Sevada did this with a very fast start on the CDC circuit, winning four events back to back, adding a fifth later in the season, to finish top of the CDC rankings and book his spot here outright. This gave him entry into a few of their other events, the one that most viewers will have seen being the US Darts Masters, where he put in a poor showing against Gerwyn Price, but aside from that Adam made the semi final of the Cross Border Challenge (losing to Leonard Gates), got into the North American championship but would lose in the opening round to Jim Long (so a common opponent given Campbell beat him later in the event), and would also reach the semi finals of the Continental Cup, narrowly losing to eventual champion Alex Spellman. He did pop across for the World Masters, beating Martijn Dragt but losing to Karel Sedlacek, and hopefully he'll return for that next year and maybe give Q-School and some of the other early events a go. He's looking alright domestically, but lack of performances in limited stage experience could be a worry.

I think I've got to go for Wade here. First round shouldn't be any problem, and I think he should be too steady for Evans, who I'm thinking will just have a bit too much firepower for Leung, although that's not a guarantee. Menzies against Manby is an interesting one. Charlie clearly has massive potential and upside, having the peak game that can match up with Menzies' peak game, which I'm not even sure we'll see. It wouldn't surprise me if he pulled the upset here, and I think whoever wins that one would have the edge over Campbell, who I think despite meh form is a better talent than Sevada. James has just done enough this year however that I think he gets a run going. Winner - James Wade

Gian van Veen's made the biggest breakthrough of anyone this season, going from having no senior title to winning a Pro Tour to winning a major title in the European Championship, a not unexpected rise but still a very sharp one and getting the major title was perhaps a tad quicker than many thought. In that event, van Veen defeated Damon Heta, Ryan Searle and Ryan Joyce with few problems, got past Michael van Gerwen 11-9 in the semi final before surviving a match dart to claim the title against Luke Humphries. It's a huge achievement that cements his place amongst the world's elite, but not the only thing of note. Prior to that, Gian made new bests of quarter finals in the UK Open and Matchplay, with a near 110 average against Heta in the former, a match which went the distance, and a win over Humphries in the Matchplay. He drew Littler at Leicester and had a very tough Slam group which he couldn't get out of, but would beat Humphries again at Minehead before a bit of a surprise defeat to Krzysztof Ratajski. Gian made a second Euro Tour final, coming up short against van Gerwen, but finished that season very strongly with three semi finals in the last four events, only being stopped by Rock, Bunting and Aspinall. van Veen would also retain his world youth championship, becoming only the second player to do so after Dimitri van den Bergh, would make a World Cup debut, reaching the semi finals with Danny Noppert, and continued to look strong on the floor, picking up his first title with a dominant win against Luke Humphries a day after making a third career final where he fell just short against Joe Cullen, and would later add a further final where Gerwyn Price emerged victorious. Two semi finals, five quarter finals and a further five board victories shows great consistency at the Pro Tour level. He surely has to be in discussion for the Premier League, but may need a solid run here to avoid any sort of "is it too early" questions as we've seen for many younger players in the past. For me it isn't.

Cristo Reyes makes a surprise and welcome return to the world stage, ending a five year absence after winning the Mediterranean qualifier to make the field. Reyes, who's previously made the last sixteen at this event, returns having beaten former card holder Jesus Noguera and current card holder Michele Turetta along the way, before claiming a 7-4 win against Ricardo Perez to get back here. The numbers he was putting up on stage were very good, almost as if he was back at his best, breaking the ton barrier on at least one occasion. Really kind of hard to say where he's at beyond that, following losing his tour card in 2021 he's basically been completely off the radar, trying to get his card back at 2022 Q-School but not managing it. All we can really do is look at the numbers and see how they match up with how we know he could play - he's been good enough before to get into the seeding spots for here, has done enough to qualify for the Matchplay, and has been to the last sixteen of multiple majors. You don't do that by accident, and if he is to show up and play like he did in the qualifier, then he does stand a chance, although clearly it's a horrible draw for him.

Alan Soutar comes back for a fourth appearance here, managing two back to back last sixteen appearances in his first two efforts which saw him creep into the top 32 at one point, but missed 2024 and lost in the opening round to Kai Gotthardt last season, so will look to rectify that after finishing around the middle of the Pro Tour standings, staying safely the right side of the tour card cutoff for now. On the floor, Alan took a while to get going, not losing too many early matches but not progressing particularly deep either, and it would take until June where he had good back to back days of a board win and a first quarter final of the season, a stage he would match in consecutive days in Milton Keynes in August, before form tailed off somewhat with six first round exits in the last nine events of the season. That accumulation was enough to book a Players Championship Finals spot with a fair bit of safety, but he couldn't get that far up the rankings and while a draw of Luke Woodhouse was by no means the worst he could have got, he was still a clear second best. Europe was a struggle, only getting through the qualifiers to make a pair of events, losing to Cameron Menzies and Matt Campbell in the opening round in them. He couldn't get much going at the Masters, being on the wrong end of William Borland's surprise run, but did have a bit of a good tournament at the UK Open, not matching his previous best but whitewashing Callan Rydz and coming out the better against Matt Campbell on this occasion, then giving Jonny Clayton a bit of a run for his money but ending up losing 10-7. Alan is a winner on the Pro Tour from 2024 and has made a big quarter final in the Grand Slam in the past, but looks a bit off that level right now.

Teemu Harju will be making his first appearance here, being one of a number of players who made big improvements from previously on a secondary tour, having shown up in a few of the Nordic events last year but making strides in 2025. His qualification comes from winning the inaugural Nordic and Baltic Championship, where coming in as the second seed he beat Par Riihonen, card holder Cor Dekker, Johan Engstrom and then won the final heavily against Edwin Torbjornsson, averaging in the mid 90's as he came out the 8-2 victor. Harju didn't actually need this win to qualify, as he just scraped home into second on the Nordic and Baltic Tour, losing one final early but winning two others, notably the last one to draw level with Oskar Lukasiak on cash but claim the place on countback. Harju reached the quarter finals or better in nine of the twelve events, and in those weekends he was also able to win through to a pair of European Tour events - pushing Ryan Joyce fairly hard but coming up short in the first, then not pushing Dirk van Duijvenbode very hard in the second with Dirk winning every leg and averaging over a ton. He played the World Cup with Marko Kantele, but would be stunned by New Zealand (not so much the win, more the 4-0 nature of it) and Argentina, winning just the one leg in the event despite being the seeds in the group, and wasn't quite high enough in the rankings when the Nordic Darts Masters came around to get the call up for that. Maybe next year? Solid enough player and he can't complain too much about this draw.

Dimitri van den Bergh has had a bad 2025. A multiple major winner, including just last year at the UK Open, he's now in a position where a large percentage of his ranking money is going to disappear in a few months and it's hard to say where it will come back from. The season started out alright, with a run to the semi finals of the Masters, with a good trio of wins over Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson and Nathan Aspinall, and at the UK Open he'd make a steady run to the last sixteen with wins over Raymond van Barneveld and Chris Dobey, before barely averaging 70 in a heavy loss to Michael Smith. Having not done a great deal on the floor to that point, losing as a seed in the first two European Tour events of the season before getting off the mark in the third against Thibault Tricole (only to be whitewashed next round by Martin Schindler), and having a 3-7 opening round record on the Pro Tour, Dimitri took a break, but would not do much of anything when he did come back. He didn't qualify for another European Tour event all season having dropped from the seeding positions, while his main order of merit ranking slipped from the top 16, so he ended up missing all the majors, the only chances of getting into any being the Grand Slam (where he lost in the qualifier to Joshua Richardson), and the Players Championship Finals, but he couldn't get enough together to make that either - playing in the last eighteen events but losing in the first round in twelve of them. He was technically still live to make it up to the final event, where he made a season's best run to the quarter finals, but a loss to Chris Dobey at that stage would end his chances. It's hard to say if there's something wrong off the oche and I wouldn't like to speculate to that extent, but this is nowhere near the Dimitri of 18-24 months ago.

Darren Beveridge, the man with maybe the best nickname in the sport (after the two better ones were forced to change it by the killjoys), will make a first world championship appearance in the second year of his tour card, and while it seems like way too much to ask for him to save it after a 2024 where he frankly didn't get a lot done, making it here through the Pro Tour rankings (safely in mid table) is at least trending in the right direction and ought to give him some confidence that he can claim it back in January. With steady scoring throughout the year, Darren showed good improvement on the floor, with a little bit of a slow start prior to a couple of board wins in the second quarter of the year, but his best run would come in September, beating the Dutch trio of Klaasen, Noppert and van Veen as well as Ryan Joyce to reach the quarter finals, losing to Ryan Searle. This was steady enough progress to get into the top 64 and hence make Minehead, where he'd run into Ryan Searle again and lose 6-1. He made a single European Tour where he would get a good, if scrappy, win over Wessel Nijman, while in the "everyone plays" majors he went out in the groups in the Masters after losing to Andreas Harrysson, but get a UK Open win over James Hurrell, prior to losing to Justin Hood. He's been around for a while and looks pretty competent all round, as long as the big stage does not completely overwhelm him, there's enough here that he's got a very realistic chance of putting a couple of wins together.

Madars is the Latvian number one who's fallen back a bit from the peak around three years ago where he'd crept into the seedings here and qualified for the tough to get to majors, but is still safely hanging around in the top 50 and will make a seventh straight appearance here and a tenth world championship overall if you include his BDO appearances before switching to the PDC. Razma ended up just above midway in the Pro Tour standings, and will be looking to repeat his third round runs from the last two seasons. There weren't too many major floor successes, he has made more than one Pro Tour final in the past, but the closest he would get is an early semi final run where he would beat two world champions in Michael Smith and Gary Anderson, a third if you include Stephen Bunting, only losing in the semi to Gian van Veen, although that semi wasn't close at all. Aside from that however it was mostly a dry spell, with just a pair of board wins but more first round wins than losses, hence losing in the top 64 or 32 most of the time, which is what his ranking suggests should happen. Razma played in four Euro Tours, the best being the first, where as an alternate he knocked out Danny Noppert to make round three before losing to Peter Wright. He got into two more through the Pro Tour list (not sure how) but lost in the first round in both, and qualified legitimately just once, beating a domestic qualifier to get to Martin Schindler, where he lost. The majors he did play were a mixed bag, he'd lose his first Masters game to Radek Szaganski, but pick up wins in both the Minehead events, getting past Ryan Meikle comfortably and Ricardo Pietreczko just about to get to the second day of the UK Open where he'd keep things relatively close against Michael Smith, while he surprised a lot by turning over Dirk van Duijvenbode just recently, only to then be a distant second best to Danny Noppert. He's always been a tad inconsistent, but if he brings one of the better versions of his game he can get something going here.

Jamai van den Herik is a relatively new name to me, not being completely unknown as there are a couple of Dev Tour runs in my database dating back to 2020, but to get here is virtually out of nowhere. Jamai finished in the top six in both the Development Tour and the Challenge Tour, it being the former that got him here after a couple of people ahead of him in the rankings qualified directly through the Pro Tour. On the Dev Tour, van den Herik did most of his work late, picking up a pair of titles, one each in the fourth and fifth weekends, going on a couple of deepish runs in the first weekend but not really doing that much mid season. The Challenge Tour was somewhat similar, but he got one win in May over Graham Hall and a second in August against Jenson Walker, that second one being straight after he reached a semi final earlier on the same day to show some good stamina levels. These would be enough to see him get to quite a few Pro Tour events, and he started making an immediate impression, winning his first match in each of his first nine appearances, picking up wins against the likes of Damon Heta, Mike de Decker, Wessel Nijman and Cameron Menzies, with a best run being to a quarter final shortly after the Matchplay. His latter season form tailed off a tad, hitting a run of five straight first round losses, but that last one was only a 6-5 loss to Littler which is hardly a negative, and two others were at least deciders. It is really hard to say what he will do on a big stage - at least with many we've seen some sort of previous stage game, but this looks like it will be his first stage game and first major appearance of any description, so how he reacts will be unknown. A lot of the kids simply wouldn't care and just throw darts for sure, but that isn't universal, and it's definitely an open question as to what will happen.

This is the most wide open section, except for one player. Reyes being back and looking good is exciting, but it's a horror draw and van Veen, assuming he doesn't have any weird Ally Pally mental blockages given he's not actually won a game here, should wipe the floor with anyone. Soutar I think will have the experience and course and distance to deal with Harju, and I think we might see the same with Razma over van den Herik. Dimitri however I just don't know, is the confidence there? I think it'll be there with Beveridge. That bottom section is incredibly even and I think you can make a reasonable case for any of the eight permutations of results. I'll go with Madars over Darren, but I won't argue against anyone who says literally anything different. Who goes to the last sixteen might be the most obvious one we've had yet though. Winner - Gian van Veen