Monday, 27 January 2025

Tungsten Analysis 2024 Awards

Bit late, but as it looks like they won't actually do the World Masters prelims draw in any sort of time to look into betting/thoughts, if the bookies even stick markets up for it, I'll do this now and not put things off any further.

Best single tournament performance

2017 - Phil Taylor, World Matchplay
2018 - Gary Anderson, World Matchplay
2019 - Peter Wright, World Championship
2020 - Ryan Searle, Players Championship 3
2021 - Peter Wright, Players Championship Finals
2022 - Ross Smith, European Championship
2023 - Andrew Gilding, UK Open

Nominees - Ritchie Edhouse, European Championship, Luke Littler, Grand Slam and World Championship, Wessel Nijman, Grand Slam, Jarno Bottenberg, Dutch Open, Luke Humphries, German Darts Grand Prix/Czech Darts Open

Winner - Mike de Decker, World Grand Prix

To me, this was one of the easier ones to narrow down to two - it had to be one of the two new major winners that we weren't expecting (we were of course expecting that Littler would get one). For me though, the nod has to go to Mike, just based on the strength of opponent - having to go through two clear top five players in Gary Anderson and Luke Humphries, including Humphries in the final, as well as another top ten player in de Decker, a major winner from earlier this season in van den Bergh as well as a super tough veteran in Wade, that was a stronger run than Edhouse, who, while not downplaying his victory in the slightest, certainly had an easier path. Meanwhile Littler has to be in here, his worlds win was not easy in the slightest and if anything his performance at the Slam was better, I'm including Nijman in the latter one as his level of play there was absurd, even if he didn't win a match, while Bottenberg being able to come away one of the hardest opens in the world was huge, and if you overlooked Humphries' level of play in the two Euro Tours he binked, go back and look at them, the performances were obscene.

Match of the season

2017 - Rob Cross v Michael van Gerwen, World Championship
2018 - Gary Anderson v Mensur Suljovic, World Matchplay
2019 - Peter Wright v Noel Malicdem, World Championship
2020 - Michael van Gerwen v Joe Cullen, World Championship
2021 - Michael Smith v Jonny Clayton, World Championship
2022 - Dirk van Duijvenbode v Ryan Searle, Players Championship Finals
2023 - Luke Humphries v Joe Cullen, World Championship

Nominees - Luke Littler v Ryan Searle, Players Championship 1, Ryan Searle v Gary Anderson, Players Championship 3, Damon Heta v Luke Littler, UK Open, Rob Cross v Gian van Veen, World Matchplay, Gerwyn Price v Joe Cullen, World Championship

Winner - Luke Littler v Gary Anderson, Grand Slam

Would not blame anyone for picking Price/Cullen - a last leg decider in a long format match on the biggest stage of all where it was continually in the balance throughout checks every box, but having a game between two of the top three players in the world in a semi final match up which for all intents and purposes decided the title, and having it meet all the hype and go all the way, with both players maintaining an extremely high level of play throughout, that just about pips it for me. Also worth of mention were two of the early PC events, now streamed to everyone - both last leg shootouts where both players were lights out and scoring like maniacs, the Heta/Littler game was an early pace setter for this one, while Cross against van Veen was an overtime game going to a decider with both players averaging over a ton is one that may have slipped under the radar.

Most disappointing season

2017 - Benito van de Pas
2018 - Rob Cross
2019 - Raymond van Barneveld
2020 - Adrian Lewis
2021 - Jeffrey de Zwaan
2022 - Ian White
2023 - Josh Rock

Nominees - Dave Chisnall, Ricardo Pietreczko, Andy Baetens, Boris Krcmar, Gerwyn Price

Winner - Jose de Sousa

This is one that we could have seen coming somewhat, with a gradual drop down the rankings having already started, but while a lot of the players who are getting on in their careers lost their cards as expected, I'm not sure that anyone was expecting de Sousa to miss the worlds completely - the only player in the FRH top 64 as of right now to do so. That's just how bad a season he had, being fairly ineffective on the floor and having a shocker of a loss in the only major event he played. Elsewhere, Chisnall was actually pretty good on the floor in terms of results with two Euro Tours and two Pro Tours, but the floor has never been the problem, it's been TV, where he was completely ineffective. Price, the other huge name on the list, was almost as ineffective on TV (albeit pulled things around somewhat in the worlds) but also did very little on the lower circuits as well. Pietreczko could not build on his Euro Tour win as well and suffered a complete collapse of form for the majority of the season, Andy Baetens didn't have anywhere near the impact that anyone thought he would, while Krcmar had a horrifically disappointing season in terms of results and lost his tour card as a result.

Best young player

2017 - Justin van Tergouw
2018 - Luke Humphries/Leighton Bennett
2019 - Keane Barry
2020 - Callan Rydz
2021 - Rusty-Jake Rodriguez
2022 - Josh Rock
2023 - Luke Littler

Nominees - Beau Greaves, Paige Pauling, Sophie McKinlay, Gian van Veen, Niko Springer, Lex Paeshuyse

Winner - Wessel Nijman

Greaves continues to dominate the women's game while having only just turned 21, although in Pauling and McKinlay, there's a couple of even younger players who may end up giving her trouble for decades to come if they continue to develop as they have been doing (and if the PDC/WDF get their shit together), McKinlay already having shown a very strong run in this year's senior worlds. van Veen has grabbed the PDC world youth (only just) and Springer has looked like an excellent prospect. That said, Lex has garnered an awful lot of attention from his exploits, and may end up being better than any one of these, it's a phenomenal level of play he's putting up given his age.

Most disappointing news of the season

2017 - Phil Taylor still not getting it quietly
2018 - Everything to do with the UK Open
2019 - Everything to do with the BDO
2020 - Kyle McKinstry and Wessel Nijman match fixing
2021 - Everything to do with the European Tour/European Championship
2022 - Retrospective awarding of a World Championship place to the Women's Matchplay winner
2023 - PDC wrecking the European Tour going forward

Nominees - Steve Beaton losing his tour card, PDC/WDF still not having every event on Dart Connect, everything to do with the women's game, Dom Taylor missing major events, Leighton Bennett match fixing, World Seniors altering their age eligibility criteria, PDC changing the Grand Prix seedings

Winner - PDC wrecking the European Tour going forward even more than they did last year

It was going to be hard to mess up the European Tour worse than the PDC did twelve months ago, but their most recent changes fuck things up even further and are solely concerned with the protection of their elite players and ignoring the sport in depth as a whole, which given the opportunities from outside the PDC are now higher than they have ever been, may end up simply making the tour weaker and weaker. They changed the Grand Prix criteria to be identical to the Matchplay at the same time to create yet another samey event, while the loss of two younger players from key periods of the season was not good - one's back after what looks like a fairly lenient ban was announced today, while Bennett's done for years and can only be described as a huge waste of talent. Beaton moving off the pro circuit was known to be coming and while it's a case of don't be sad it's over, be happy it happened, it's still a shame to lose a legend of the game off the pro ranks, particularly as he missed the world. The major organisers still having events that aren't on DC is unbelievable, the WDF I can understand a bit more than the PDC, but surely the former can at least require DC connectivity from, say, the prize money stages of all events, while regardless of what agreements the PDC have with the shite that is sportradar, there can't be anything that doesn't allow them to multicast events to DC as well. Any discussion of the women's game continues to descend into toxicity and will only make it less and less relevant, while the weirdest one of the year was the Seniors Tour cutting their age limit to 45? So they can include that massive draw (checks notes) Vincent van der Voort? When one of the best three players in the world is 54? Come on now.

Personal highlight of the season

2017 - Mensur Suljovic wins the Champions League
2018 - Ian White claims a European Tour title
2019 - The explosion in quality from non-traditional areas
2020 - The PDC's efforts to get some sort of calendar on
2021 - Matt Campbell winning his tour card
2022 - Danny Noppert claiming a major title
2023 - A full return for the Asian Tour

Nominees - Wesley Plaisier getting on tour, Cameron Menzies winning a title, the big split of PDC title winners at all levels, Sweden getting extremely strong all of a sudden, the announced Masters revamp

Winner - Paul Lim making the Lakeside final

Has to be. This was a great story - only making it into the event at the last minute, then rolling back the years to only be defeated at the final hurdle by Shane McGuirk, it seems fitting that such a legend of the game was finally able to get into a big final. In other news, Plaisier's looked really good this season both on and off the PDC circuit, and now that he's got a card for two years should hopefully be able to do some damage, Menzies has been due a win for ages and it was great to see him finally get one, albeit he couldn't really convert it onto TV form, all the big Swedish players having very strong seasons - getting two more onto the main tour, de Graaf having a very nice worlds run, while Ostlund and Harrysson should be very dangerous floaters who we should expect to see on both sides of the divide. The revamp of the Masters into another proper major event that has huge potential if they sort out the prize money was good riddance to a bad tournament and hello to something that looks good and should only improve. Meanwhile, while it looked like a real danger that the only players winning anything in the PDC would be people called Luke, we saw two new major winners, Dimitri nicking one from a bit out of left field, two new European Tour winners and nine different winners overall, while the first fourteen Pro Tours saw fourteen different winners. There's huge strength in depth, despite the PDC thinking otherwise.

Best new tour card holder

2017 - Richard North
2018 - Danny Noppert
2019 - Glen Durrant
2020 - Damon Heta
2021 - Alan Soutar
2022 - Jim Williams
2023 - Gian van Veen

Nominees - James Hurrell, Chris Landman, Thibault Tricole, Darren Beveridge

Winner - Dom Taylor

Of course, he's been a bit of a silly boy, but prior to that he was looking fantastic, scoring way more than anyone else who'd got on to tour and looking like a legitimate contender to win a Pro Tour title. Hopefully this episode can be put behind him, and he can go forward from the issue like Nijman has. Outside of Dom, it's been a quiet year, with there being a decent number of players regaining their card and quite a number not making any sort of significant impact on the tour - this may be partially down to lesser opportunities for the 128 as a whole, it may be partly down to the intake just not being particularly strong this year. Hard to say. Still, the first three nominees all did enough to make the worlds and show some flashes, while Beveridge was putting together numbers over the season that were arguable better than any of those three, just not getting the results to match the performances.

Most improved player

2017 - Daryl Gurney
2018 - Jeffrey de Zwaan
2019 - Nathan Aspinall
2020 - Devon Petersen
2021 - Martin Schindler
2022 - Martin Lukeman
2023 - Radek Szaganski

Nominees - Stephen Bunting, Jermaine Wattimena, Alexis Toylo, Wessel Nijman, Connor Scutt, Jimmy van Schie

Winner - Kai Gotthardt

Quite a few players really pushing on this year. Bunting's gone from that fringes of elite level to worlds semi finalist, TV winner and Premier League competitor, while Jermaine's continued his rise in form back to probably the best he's ever played. Toylo came from pretty much nowhere to win the Asian Tour and not look at all out of place at world championship level. Nijman we knew was good but he's completely dominated the younger levels of play, won a Pro Tour, is easily scoring at a top 16 level and a big TV run is due. Scutt has completely turned around the disappointment of losing a tour card to take his game up to a new level, crushing the Challenge Tour and doing enough on the main circuit to win his card outright, while van Schie was virtually unknown this time last year, but finished up as a winner of multiple WDF events, top ten on the Challenge Tour, was the favourite going into the WDF worlds and is now arguably the best player without a tour card. But I'm giving it to Gotthardt. He's a name we've seen for a few years, but was never really anyone who was thought to be anything other than making up the numbers on the European Tour, if he was even qualifying at all. But this year he's really progressed massively - winning his way through to the worlds, making the World Masters final, doing enough on the Challenge Tour to get into the Pro Tour, and when at the worlds he looked very comfortable against someone with Soutar's quality and kept himself close with Bunting for a while in the second round. The seasonal numbers look extremely steady, he's now also won himself a tour card, and looks to be doing enough that if he continues this way, he'll stand every chance of keeping it. Compared to where he was twelve months ago? That's one hell of a jump.

Player of the year

2017 - Rob Cross
2018 - Gary Anderson
2019 - Michael van Gerwen
2020 - Gerwyn Price
2021 - Jonny Clayton
2022 - Michael van Gerwen
2023 - Luke Humphries

Nominees - Luke Humphries, Gary Anderson

Winner - Luke Littler

There's really only three names in the equation. Nobody else did enough in terms of winning stuff (c/f personal highlights) or level of play to get close to these. Ando had the best numbers, but TV results just weren't there. Humphries had the TV results, with two majors and two more major finals, but that doesn't match up to what Littler's been able to do in his first full senior season. Winning the world title, winning another ranked major, winning another two big televised events including the Premier League, binking all of the first Pro Tour, Euro Tour and World Series events he played, hitting nines for fun - any questions of how he would hold up over the rigours of a full senior season have been more than answered, and 2025 could well be even better than 2024.

I will try and post up some thoughts on the first televised knockout stages of the World Masters on Wednesday evening, but it's going to involve a lot of data entry despite the numbers of players not giving it a shot for understandable reasons. Check back then.

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