Was 2025 the second year of the Ferret? Quite possibly. One way or another, it was really damned solid. Jonny really rolled back the years and chucked his name into the pot as a legitimate contender for a Premier League return, with solid results across all levels and solid statistics to back things up. Those sorts of claims ought to be started by talking about TV form, and it was good - albeit a game of two halves. Jonny was a leg away from winning the Masters, having knocked out Littler in the quarters, he came from 5-2 down in sets to force Humphries to a decider, but was not quite able to get over the line and Luke won the title. Three major semi finals followed (along with a final in the World Cup) - stopped by Littler twice in the UK Open and the Grand Prix, and only losing to Wade in the Matchplay in overtime. After that however, things fell of a cliff with a first round loss to Searle in Dortmund, a failure to get out of a group which didn't seem that hard in the Slam, and then a first round loss to James Hurrell in the Players Championship Finals. Not really the trend you would like to see. Lower levels were generally decent - he added another European Tour title to his name in Rosmalen, notably beating Humphries in the semi final and having a fairly tough path throughout, and he would also pick up a Pro Tour title in April, with a dominant display over Dominik Gruellich in the final. Clayton would add a further final later in the season which he would lose to Stephen Bunting, and showed decent consistency with five other last eight runs, including two late in the season, where while it looked like his TV form was tailing off, his general form seemed alright. A seeding of five seems a fair bit high, but the results don't lie and the numbers aren't that far off things, so it really wouldn't surprise me if he was able to make a solid run here.
Adam Lipscombe is a new tour card holder who, at least according to Wiki, needed snookers to get into stage two of Q-School, but having got them, did more than enough to qualify on points for a tour card, and has made an extremely solid start to his PDC career to qualify here, having played whatever an ADC Global Championship is, losing out to known name Devon Petersen in the final of that event. Adam is here pretty much entirely on account of winnings on the Pro Tour - getting in as one of the last few players, he wasn't able to get anything going on the European Tour, only getting to the final round once (where he obviously lost), so it was all on the floor, where he was a surprise early finalist, beating Damon Heta, Dirk van Duijvenbode and otherwise a generally solid field to get through to Gary Anderson, where he kept things somewhat close early but fell away to a moderately one-sided defeat. Lipscombe would add a quarter final soon after, but a string of first and second round defeats, only getting to a board final twice (at least in the last five events for form purposes) was not ideal. Adam was able to win through three rounds of the UK Open, defeating a qualifier then two seasoned opponents in Klaasen and White before perhaps surprisingly losing out to Jurjen van der Velde in round four, and he also had a very good result at the Minehead return, knocking out dangerous opponents in Menzies and Brooks prior to missing a huge chance with many missed match darts against Daryl Gurney to reach the quarter finals. That much of the good form was early is not ideal, but having seen recent flashes on TV and recently, and both combined, shows he's not going to be a walkover.
Dom Taylor's a name who has been around for a while, and it's kind of both a surprise and not a surprise that his will be a debut campaign, for reasons that will just be left described as "reasons" that most already know and anyone can find out about. This year saw Taylor end up solidly in the top half of the Pro Tour rankings, following a relatively steady campaign which saw an explosive start back on the tour with two semi finals in the first eight events, although both these results and his next best result of a quarter final took place outside of the UK where the field is typically a tad weaker. These would be enough for Dom to make it to Minehead recently, but there he would narrowly lose to Andrew Gilding in the opening round. That needed to be enough on its own - Taylor had a disastrous time on the European Tour, failing to qualify for a single event, only getting to the final round of qualifying twice, and nearly half the time he was losing to players he could beat - subjectively, you could say more, but then we start getting into the realms of opinions. There's little else to talk about - he played the UK Open and beat Steve Lennon in a decider, only to then lose a decider to Cameron Menzies in the third round. Taylor is an extremely dangerous proposition, the numbers don't lie, the concerns are lack of stage experience and maybe a trailing off in form in the second half of the year. But if he shows up, watch out.
Dom's opponent will be Oskar Lukasiak, a new tour card holder from twelve months ago, who booked his place at the biggest event on the calendar through the Nordic/Baltic tour, ending in a tie for second on that ranking with Teemu Harju, but avoiding any hilarity after Harju grabbed the Nordic regional championship, letting Oskar claim the second spot on his own. On that circuit, he won the first event in Riga over Andreas Harrysson, and while he would not be able to get a second title, he would reach three further finals throughout the season (losing to Harrysson on every occasion), which'd give him enough to make his debut on this stage. A relative veteran having played in the BDO World Masters in the noughties, it's only just in this season that he's really made progression to play at the highest level on a regular occasion after finishing high on the points tally to claim his card. Oskar has found the step up to this level tough - getting to one early board final mainly due to opposition woes would be his peak, he would only win maybe half a dozen games for the rest of the season, nicking a couple of alright results but generally only because he ran into players who were equally as far down the PDC food chain as he was. He didn't make the Euro Tour all year, would get out of his Masters group but then lose to Niels Zonneveld, and be heavily routed by Thomas Lovely in his first UK Open game. It feels like he is a much better player than the numbers and results suggest, but against a tough first round opponent, it's hard to make any sort of reasonable claim that this might be close.
Michael it seems, per what I've caught of recent interviews, seems to have been working through some injuries which certainly haven't helped his game, but even taking that into consideration, to see him slide as he has is pretty darned shocking, and unthinkable if you roll the clock back two years to when he was defending his world title. This season's seen some ups and downs and some sparks of possible returns to form, but at the same time it's shown a lot of average stuff. When he has been able to get on TV, he's not been too bad - making a pair of quarter finals, first at the UK Open where he avenged his worlds loss to Kevin Doets, got through a close one with Razma before thumping a very poor Dimitri, then lost a narrow one to possible opponent here Jonny Clayton. Later, having qualified for the Slam, he got out of a group containing Humphries and Aspinall then beat Chris Dobey in the knockout stages, before being a distant second best to Humphries. Otherwise, he didn't qualify for events you'd think he would (Matchplay, Grand Prix, Euro Champs) or was out early (Noppert in the Masters, Schindler in the PC Finals). He's a bit off the pace in the Pro Tour rankings, and he's not really showing signs of getting back - he missed the last four Euro Tours and only made one quarter final all year (where he did beat Humphries to be fair), while on the floor it was a rollercoaster - six out of eight first round losses to start, then an alright spell of eight where he got to a quarter and two semis, but ended with seven first round defeats in the last ten. He's clearly not forgotten how to play the game, he just needs to get properly healthy, then do something like bink a Pro Tour to get back up the rankings, into Euro Tours more easily, and back in all the majors. Which is not a big ask for someone with the talent he has.
His opening opponent will be Lisa Ashton, a four time Lakeside champion (although not since 2018 it should be said), who's been here on four previous occasions, not looking bad in any of them and getting to a deciding set twice, but still looking for a first win. Lisa is here having won the World Matchplay, with a big upset over Beau Greaves in the semi finals before a tight win over Fallon Sherrock in the final. That locked up the spot, but the former card holder (let's not forget that) would have been fine through the Women's Series rankings had she not picked up the title in Blackpool. On that series, Lisa won the opening event over debutant this year Gemma Hayter, and would reach four further finals, only really getting close to a win in the last one of those four, but it would be enough to lock up third place on the rankings. That Matchplay win got Lisa into the Grand Slam - not much was expected with a draw into a group of death including the deadly trio of young players in Rock, Nijman and van Veen, but she would push Gian to a deciding leg in the opening game, but then not pick up a leg in the other two matches. She did take up the World Masters invite, but couldn't get out of a group containing Stephen Burton and Aden Kirk. It would have been good if we had seen her try Q-School and play some Challenge Tour, but that didn't happen, and she seems to have not looked to do any of the WDF circuit either. Can still certainly be a dangerous player capable of winning 2-3 legs rapidly, but over a five set match it's probably too much of an ask.
Zonneveld is a developing player who was in the fringes of the top 64 for some time, but is starting to make a move up towards the top 32 following on from a breakthrough 2024, and doing more than consolidating this year, ending as the third player in the Pro Tour rankings and getting seeded frequently for those events. On the floor, Niels has looked remarkably consistent, not dropping many opening games and going deep frequently, with two quarter finals, three semi finals, as well as a debut final in Hildesheim, where he got what looked like a very decent opponent in terms of being able to claim a first title in Bialecki, but it would be the Pole that would come out a narrow 8-6 victor. Niels couldn't repeat his late season Euro Tour semi final, but was able to get into six events, getting to the third round on a couple of occasions with wins over Wade and Aspinall, but it wasn't enough to allow him to qualify for the tough majors, although it must have been fairly close and he's looking good at the moment to make them in 2026, which'll allow for a further push up the rankings. He'd have liked to have done a bit more in the Minehead events, losing out to Robert Owen and Nick Kenny in close ties, while Wattimena did for him at the Masters which I guess is fair enough given his form. He's never done a great deal here, but has got a decent chance of rectifying that record this year.
Haupai Puha was one of five players to win their spot here through the PDPA qualifier, and will make his third appearance here having previously won through the DPNZ rankings and the Oceanic Masters, and will be hoping for a first win, although losing his tour card looks virtually certain having won it in 2024 to become the first New Zealander to do so. In that qualifier, Hopes comfortably defeated Rhys Griffin and Greg Ritchie, but was forced all the way by Brett Claydon, needing to win the last five legs to come from behind, the final one being a missed double party but Puha finally hit for a huge 24 darter. On the tour, it's been a fair bit of a struggle and he does look a touch out of his depth, with recent form not being kind, not having reached a board final since before the Matchplay, and only doing so all season three times, pushing through to a board win once with a couple of good wins over Cross and Edhouse, averaging over a ton twice in that event to show what he can do at his best, but generally the averaging has been in the eighties, occasionally the low nineties, which typically isn't enough at this level. He did play the Masters but lost out to Darius Labanauskas in the group stages, and had a bit of a cameo at the UK Open to reach the last 64, beating Aden Kirk and Christian Kist to get there, but would lose a winnable game against Dylan Slevin 10-7. These two years will have been a good learning experience, and at 40 you feel this won't be a last hurrah by any means, but this is not an easy draw despite missing the true seeded players.
Can't see any of the seeds having any problems in round one. Lipscombe against any of the other three might have had a puncher's chance but getting Clayton is a tough one. In round two, I could easily see the actual seeds being pushed hard - Taylor is a legitimate contender, and I think with how things are trending, Zonneveld could easily break new ground on this stage and turn Smith over, he feels like a very similar sort of player in career trajectory to Kevin Doets who did the same thing twelve months ago. Tight ones to call, but I think Clayton will just have enough and then face probably an easier opponent either way in round three and come through. Winner - Jonny Clayton
Ross will make a ninth appearance here, and has a fairly underwhelming record on this stage, having not advanced beyond round three and surprisingly losing his opening game to Paolo Nebrida twelve months ago. This season has been alright in terms of numbers, but in terms of results it's been somewhat hit and miss. The best hits were on the floor, where Smith picked up a pair of Pro Tour titles - the first being a whitewash victory over Brendan Dolan, the second being a much tighter deciding leg win over Josh Rock. He was there or there abouts a lot, reaching the last eight or further on eight more occasions, which gave him a really strong seeding for the Players Championship Finals of 4 - although the upshot is that he would have faced Niko Springer, beat the alternate Meikle, then got Luke Littler so the seeding counted for little. Smith made a third Euro Tour final in Austria, but was never really close to defeating Martin Schindler once he got there and the path he had to reach that final was moderately generous, but the overall start to the tour was red hot, making the final session in four of the first five events, only to tail off for the remainder and be an even split of lose first game or lose second game. On the telly, Smith has struggled to get too much done, drawing and losing to Heta in the Masters, taking de Sousa out of the UK Open prior to going all the way with Josh Rock who'd win the deciding leg. He'd get Rock again and lose again in Blackpool, disappoint in Leicester losing to Daryl Gurney, while Gurney would beat him again in the last sixteen in Dortmund before not qualifying for the Grand Slam despite his two floor titles. Maybe his best performance was in the World Series finals, where he only just lost 10-8 to Littler but put up some huge numbers in the process. Very strong player and I don't think he can have any complaints about this section of the draw.
Harrysson is an extremely dangerous player on his day, who's played in the BDO/WDF worlds a couple of times, but will make his PDC debut at the age of 50 having won the Nordic and Baltic tour by a good distance from Teemu Harju and Oskar Lukasiak. Andreas, who many tipped to win a card at the start of the year, missed out on leg difference, so has had to make do with the relatively lucrative non card holder opportunities this year. On that Nordic tour, he won four events, doing the double in Reykjavik, and made another two finals to easily finish top of the table. He'd also make one Euro Tour through the qualifiers held on those weekends, beating former world champions in Michael Smith and Raymond van Barneveld prior to a last sixteen loss to Damon Heta. Harrysson had some moderate success on the Challenge Tour, not making a final but getting towards the business end on a few occasions, which got him high enough the rankings to get some occasional Pro Tour call ups. There, Harrysson was able to pick up three board wins on limited opportunities - none of these saw him face anyone truly difficult, but you can only beat who's in front of you to be fair. He'd play the World Masters, winning his group but losing in the first knockout round to Martin Lukeman, and he'd get past former card holder Scott Baker in the UK Open to cash before losing to Dominik Gruellich. Those who've seen him on the Super Series, amongst other events, know what he's capable of doing, particularly in short spells, so to see him come out of the blocks and put Smith in a hole would not be a surprise.
Tricole qualifies for his third PDC world championship having won a regional qualifier two years ago and finished mid table on the Pro Tour ranks last year, and it's that second route that sees him return looking for a third straight year where he at least wins his opening match, doing so first up in a gruelling tie with Joe Comito last year to see who got fed to Humphries, where Thibault didn't win a leg. 2025 has been OK in terms of results, maybe not so much in terms of statistics, but he's never seemed like a huge power scorer, more one that crafts chances and takes what he is given. Tricole would get to two quarter finals on the floor, but those were mainly down to good draws with the only really hard opponent he defeated on those runs being, ironically, Ross Smith, and beyond those two events, there would only be four board finals, none of which he would be able to convert. The Euro Tour was a fair bit better however, where he got to four events and picked up four wins - three of them being against Michael Smith, Jermaine Wattimena and Stephen Bunting, highlighting his ability to win by any means necessary, the last two being deciding legs where he was averaging less than his opponent. He couldn't get anything going in either the Masters or the UK Open, the latter one which he might want back where he lost comfortably to qualifier Tom Sykes, and he wasn't close to qualifying for anything else, maybe the closest being a semi final loss in a deciding leg in the Slam qualifier to Lukas Wenig. The numbers are not convincing, but that is not always everything.
Motomu will make a debut here after a breakout season on the Asian Tour. There, the Japanese player would be able to win four events - one on home soil, a brace in Mongolia and the last one in Singapore, adding a couple of finals along the way. He was a bit behind overall tour winner Alexis Toylo, but comfortably ahead of Lourence Ilagan to claim the second spot in the overall rankings. Sakai also finished third in the averages on that tour (excluding one player with minimal appearances) to highlight a solid enough level of play and some consistency. Some other events were played - he played some of the Steel Darts Japan circuit, making one final, while he was able to make a run all the way to the semi finals of the Asian Championship, putting up a good result and performance in the quarters against Man Lok Leung prior to a tight loss to Lourence Ilagan. He's been around for a little while, having occasional appearances in my database in 2023 and 2024 from the Asian Tour, including a previous Asian Championship semi final run where he went out to eventual winner Haruki Muramatsu, but this looks to be a big jump in performance and results, and how he takes to the big stage will be somewhat of an unanswered question.
Chisnall has had, to put it bluntly, a really poor season. It doesn't feel that long ago that he was the number 1 seed for Euro Tour events on a regular basis, now he's at the level where he didn't even qualify for the Grand Prix, ending a string of fourteen consecutive appearances. What's happening? If we look at the floor, he's just losing too early too often. He had just three "plain" board wins, then a singular quarter, semi, and then the one final where Krzysztof Ratajski would run out an easy enough winner. For someone who had eight finals at this level in the previous two years, four of which were won, that's a heck of a drop off. Europe wasn't much better - he started with a quarter final (beating Pietreczko and Edhouse then running into Littler) and ended with the same (beating Clemens and Evans prior to losing a deciding leg to Ratajski), but in between there was not much of anything - four wins as the seeded player before a third round loss, then eight second round losses. This did not help his TV chances really. He lost his opening Masters game to Menzies, only just got past Ricky Evans in the UK Open before losing to Ratajski again, at Blackpool he lost an opening game to de Decker, the same happened at Dortmund to Schindler after only just qualifying in the first place, as stated he didn't qualify for Leicester, didn't qualify for the Grand Slam, and Ryan Joyce won their first round tie at the PC Finals. I don't know if this is just a complete loss of form, an undisclosed injury, something off the oche, not sure. All I know is right now, if you are forced to face a seed in this event, Dave would be in more or less everyone's top three picks of who you'd want.
Fallon is making a sixth appearance here, but it's now six years removed from when she was making all the headlines, and since then she's had four first round defeats - winning a set every time, but not truly threatening to repeat the successes of the 2020 event. What's she done this year? Well it's been the Women's Series and not a lot else really. There, Sherrock won one event early over Greaves, and one mid season over Ashton, and would add another six finals, pushing Greaves close in a couple of them but losing to Beau five times and Kirsi Viinikainen on the other occasion. This was still enough for a (distant) second place in the rankings and an Ally Pally return. In other events, Fallon did play the World Masters, losing in the groups to Andreas Harrysson and Darren Beveridge, neither of which is unreasonable, did qualify for the Matchplay, where maybe the best chance she'd have to reclaim the title was lost in the final against Lisa Ashton. Fallon did try Q-School, and got through stage 1, not being without chances in stage 2 but not getting the tour card, and she did try the first Challenge Tour weekend, not being able to progress beyond the last 64. Not playing WDF events is no surprise, but I feel it would be useful if she did play some, if only to get a bit more winning habit. Similar with the Challenge Tour, I don't think she can really progress as a player with the schedule she's choosing right now. Can she show up and beat Dave? On this form, of course it's possible. Will it happen? Who knows.
Ricardo Pietreczko narrowly missed out on being seeded for this, and I don't think the German can have too many complaints about how things have worked out rather than being a place or two higher up the rankings and having your potential capped knowing you're going to run into a Luke very early on. Pietreczko had a good fourth round run here last year where he got a bit of a surprise win over van Veen and then one over Scott Williams prior to a one sided defeat against Aspinall, but 2025 has been a bit stagnant, not getting that jump into the top 32. Ricardo had a pretty mediocre floor season, making just a sole quarter final back in April, and his three other board wins all preceded that. After that, he got to four board finals in fairly quick succession (obviously losing them all), but the back end of the season has been a disaster with a run of fourteen straight events not getting past the second round, more of which were first round losses than second round losses, a run which dates back to before the Matchplay. The Euro Tour wasn't awful, but was mostly a case of winning the opening game then losing to the seeded player, he did get to a quarter in Rosmalen with a good win over Josh Rock, and followed it up next time out with a win over Schindler, but those would be the only two final day appearances all season. He'd lose his first games at the Masters and UK Open to Jeffrey de Graaf and Madars Razma, so somewhat winnable games, Blackpool he got Dobey which is kind of fair enough, but he dropped enough in the Pro Tour to miss the Grand Prix, and failed to make the Slam either. The other two majors weren't bad though, he booked back to back European Championship quarters with wins over in form Springer and Wattimena before losing to Noppert, and at Minehead he got another couple of wins, with a big seeding upset over Willie O'Connor then edging out Gary Anderson before getting up to Littler. So there's signs of some stage form, just needs to bring it here and tighten up on the lower stages to get the career moving the right way again.
de Sousa is likely to lose his tour card after a very nice run, and will make what could potentially be a final appearance here having not been close to qualifying automatically, but looked somewhat like his previous self in the PDPA qualifier, where he put three really good performances togetther to beat Rusty Jake Rodriguez, Christian Kist and then surviving a comeback and match darts against Andy Boulton to get an eighth appearance here after a year away. Coming through the qualifier was not unexpected, but coming through the way he did perhaps was. After a poor 2024, 2025 was much the same - on the floor Jose was not able to get a single board win, and only managed to get to a board final on four occasions, with overall averages per Dart Connect seeing him not even in the top 128. Sure, some above only played two games, but that is a level that is clearly off the player he used to be - or the player that showed up at the last chance saloon. The European Tour didn't see him all year, with Jose only getting three wins all season, not even getting to the final qualifying round once. This left him clearly out of Dortmund, and clearly some way off the Players Championship Finals (and obviously the hard ones like the Matchplay). The Slam qualifier saw him lose to Michael Smith, he lost his first game at the Masters to Andy Baetens, but he did get what might have been his best result at the UK Open, where he beat Jimmy van Schie a bit out of nowhere, and gave Ross Smith a bit of a run for his money in the last 64. He's been a fantastic player, the qualifier shows that maybe there's a bit still in the tank.
I think you can make some arguments against every seed here. Harrysson's peak game is as good as anyone's and he wouldn't need to sustain it for too long to get up 2-0 in sets and really put the cat amongst the pigeons, but I think Ross will have the class to hold on. Tricole might be the weakest player on the seeded half of the draw and Sakai doesn't look awful, but I think the big stage experience will see him come through as I think Motomu won't score heavy enough to deny Thibault the chances he needs. Chizzy's so hard to pick, and if Fallon can put in a performance near to her best then another win on this stage isn't out of the question, I just think that it'll take too many things to fall in Sherrock's favour for Dave to lose it. Meanwhile, if the qualifier was not just a one day thing for Jose, he absolutely has enough to beat Ricardo, but the German's shown enough for me to be confident in his ability to advance. Smith should dismantle Tricole with ease, while Pietreczko is at the level that, while he probably doesn't have it all his own way, he ought to have enough to knock Chisnall out. That puts Ross against Ricardo - I just need to look at the overall numbers here. Smith is the class player in this section, and while the gap is not insurmountable, he should win this. Winner - Ross Smith
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