I suppose this year has been alright for Luke, given that the newest Luke on the block is doing a fantastic job of limiting his upside. Humphries was able to win a couple of big events this year - the biggest one in the public eye being the Premier League, going one better than last season by being able to beat Littler in the final, but the main one for us was taking the Masters (because it's ranked), where he was able to avoid Littler, he having been knocked out by the other finalist in Jonny Clayton, but still had a few tough opponents such as Josh Rock to get through. Otherwise on TV it was usually a case of when will you run into Littler - it'd be Wade that'd stop him in the UK Open after he won a tough game against Beau Greaves then got two real comfortable victories, while it'd be Gian van Veen that secured a pair of first round wins at Blackpool and the Minehead return. It would be Littler in the final at the Grand Prix and Grand Slam, while it was van Veen once more who denied him at the European Championship. On the lower circuits, Luke ended up drawing van Veen in Minehead mainly down to playing very little of the Pro Tour, maxing an early semi final and one final (where he lost to van Veen again), but needing to play most of the back end of the season where he didn't do much, meanwhile in Europe Luke played more than half the events, winning one in Prague where he had a moderately tough trip to the final, but would beat Josh Rock there to claim it, but that was the only final of the year, five other final session appearances all falling short at the quarter or semi final stage. Perhaps the oddest one was the early elimination from the World Cup, where England were prohibitive favourites but lost to Germany in their first game. He still remains, for my money, the second best player in the world, but there's a heck of a lot bigger gap between first and second than there is second and maybe even fifth.
Evetts comes back here for the first time in a few years, this being his second year off the tour but doing enough on the Challenge Tour to book his spot, although getting the card back through that route needed a bit more in terms of results. A third place finish behind Bellmont and Labanauskas was enough with the new qualification criteria, and on that Challenge Tour, Evetts reached two finals on the second weekend, winning the second by defeating Michael Unterbuchner in the final, and while he wasn't able to make any further finals, he did get to the last four on four separate occasions, only being stopped by decent known names on each occasion. This got him through to most of the Pro Tour events, only missing the first few, winning his board once beating major champion Mike de Decker on the way, but frequently just making up the numbers, suffering first round losses to a lot of people who aren't here like Thomas Lovely, Pero Ljubic, Robert Grundy (twice), Danny van Trijp - generally the sorts of names he'd need to be beating if he wanted to hold his card should he be able to win one in January. Sure, he got his fair share of awkward draws, but you expect that. Those results weren't enough to make any majors, and he had no invite to the Masters or UK Open, and as of the recent changes couldn't try to get onto the Euro Tour either. Maybe he could have augmented his schedule with some WDF events, but I can't see that he's tried that. It's been a bounce back season and he'll be glad to be here, but this is almost the worst draw he could get.
Jeffrey de Graaf's had a nice year, following a very good run this time last year where he reached the fourth round, stunning many by taking out qualifier Rashad Sweeting prior to a straight sets win against Gary Anderson and a comfortable win over Nebrida after losing the first set. He'd go out to Michael van Gerwen but can have no complaints with his run. The breakthrough this year came on the flor - having had the odd flash in the past, de Graaf, who skipped the early events as well as the UK Open for personal reasons, would make an early final, but would lose to Schindler 8-1 with a sub-80 average, making him 0-2 in Pro Tour finals after losing one the year before to Brendan Dolan. He would get a second shot later in the season, and against a much tougher proposition in Stephen Bunting, he'd claim his first title in a deciding leg, defying a 106 average from the Bullet. He couldn't add much more after that, and between the two there were quite a few first round exits, but a win is a win. Jeffrey got to a pair of European Tour events, losing out to Dirk van Duijvenbode and Steve Lennon without really troubling either, and while his results were enough to get him into the Players Championship Finals with a top half seeding, it just happened to be the seeding that would be thrown against Luke Littler in the opening round, and you can't do too much about that. An experienced player, who had a bit of a break from the game between his card holding spells and some decent BDO success prior to that, he might be playing the best stuff now he has done in years.
Paul Lim needs no introduction, the Lakeside finalist from last year is perhaps unfairly known as "that guy that hit that nine darter once" to many, but this will be his fifteenth PDC world championship and 28th overall, but his first on this stage for four years, losing to Joe Murnan on that occasion. Lim returns having got a fifth place finish on the Asian Tour, winning an opening weekend event in Dubai, making a final on the second in Japan, adding a second win the following tour weekend in Malaysia, and making a further final later in the year in Singapore. Third through seventh in the table were all fairly close, but as seventh was enough to qualify for here, the actual finish in the middle of that cluster didn't matter too much. These performances got Lim into the Asian Championship, where he beat two players who have also qualified for here in Zong and Azemoto in the knockout stages, and nearly made the final, only losing to eventual finalist Alexis Toylo - a loss which, in retrospect, saw Lim just a leg away from a Grand Slam debut. Perhaps surprisingly given he made their final last year, Paul only has one event outside of that final in his WDF rankings, a win in the Mongolian Open back in May, and I'm not even sure he'd have played that if there wasn't the Asian Tour in the same place the day after. But hey, he's in his seventies now, I think he's earned the right to pick and choose a bit.
Nijman is an extremely dangerous upcoming player, who after his early career was put on hold for "reasons", has made a belated breakthrough into the top 32 in the world and real progress this season, following his first senior title in 2024. Wessel started the season with four straight board wins, and would accumulate very solid performances all season until hitting a devastating run of form to end the year. In the last ten events, Nijman won his board on every single occasion - turning two into quarter finals, two into semi finals, and two into outright wins, grabbing a deciding leg victory over Damon Heta, and an 8-5 win over Luke Woodhouse to close the season out. That phenomenal form saw Wessel go into the Players Championship Finals as the number two seed, but there he would end up a surprise first round loser, playing great but losing a deciding leg to Richard Veenstra. In Europe, he played every single event, getting to a pair of semi finals and a pair of quarter finals, and adding a couple of quarters to accumulate much needed big stage experience. That's still a question - he lost his first UK Open game to Scott Williams, and on debuts in the tough to get to majors, he would beat Nathan Aspinall at Blackpool, but then see Wade pull away in the latter stages of their second round game, and then miss out in an extremely tight game against Rob Cross in Leicester. He had a tough draw in Dortmund against van Gerwen and lost a deciding leg, got through an incredibly deadly Slam group only to be immediately fed to Luke Littler, then we had the Veenstra reverse. The numbers don't lie - van Veen has drawn the headlines as the next Dutch big thing, but Wessel is not far behind at all. If at all.
Karel Sedlacek will think himself a tad unlucky to get this draw, finishing fifth in the Pro Tour rankings but ending up with this as a first round tie. Karel needed to return to Q-School after ending just on the wrong side of the line last year, but got his card back, and has looked extremely solid in 2025 to claim a fifth appearance here having been really disappointing in a first round defeat last season. This year on the floor he has been steady - four quarter finals, including two back to back in Milton Keynes, five further board wins, and getting out of the opening game around two thirds of the time shows a level of consistency with the threat to go further. Europe was good - getting to six events, starting with a great run in Riesa to the quarter finals where he beat the Dutch trio of Wattimena, van Barneveld and Noppert before hitting eventual champion Stephen Bunting, and Karel would continue beating up on the Dutch with another win over Barney and one over (you guessed it) Nijman in Belgium, to give a pretty solid season in that arena. Outside of a fine run in the World Cup to the quarter finals, after years of Czechia being "will they win a match ever please", the TV events were a tad mediocre, getting through his Masters group but losing to Ricky Evans, a very surprising 6-1 loss to qualifier Paul Rowley in the UK Open, in the Grand Slam (for which he qualified through the tour card holder qualifier) he got into a winner takes all clash with Connor Scutt but couldn't bring it home, then having made the PC Finals he ended up with a tricky draw against Nathan Aspinall which he couldn't get past. Very strong player, just very unfortunate here with who he's come up against.
Clemens, I think it's fair to say, seems to have had a fair bit of a drop off in his ranking, now well out of the top 32 and not really doing anything to indicate he might be heading back in the right direction. He'd dropped enough, be that through Euro Tour rule changes meaning that he didn't get a free pass to most of the German events, form or whatever, that he missed both the Matchplay and the Grand Prix last year, and the same happened in 2025. To get back there he'll need to do something on the floor, and while this year was a bit better than last, it still wasn't great. One semi final and one quarter final (both, it should be said, on the continent) was a better return than last year, but he barely got through the first round more than half the time, and about half of those again were one and done, so it's not as if he was consistently making and/or winning board finals. On the European Tour, where he would usually be good for at least lots of appearances, he qualified twice - once in Sindelfingen where he narrowly lost to Andrew Gilding in a decent game, then ending the season in Hildesheim, but only through the reserve list, where he beat the eastern Europe qualifier prior to another decent game but a loss against Chisnall. This left him nowhere near Dortmund, he lost in the very first round of the Grand Slam qualifier, leaving him just the pair of Minehead events. At the UK Open he was in another good game, but lost a tight one to Ricky Evans, and while he did do enough to make the PC Finals, it was only as one of the last ten players in the field, which gave him Josh Rock in the opening round, going as expected. Now very clearly the German number four at best, the statistics are down from where they have been, but not terrible, so we'll see what happens.
Alex Spellman was very hotly tipped to be one of the few north American based players to have a chance to get a tour card a couple of years ago prior to him making his debut (where he lost to Ryan Joyce in a really good game) here. He returns after a year away, with the hype nowhere near what it was, and will look to pick up a first win on this stage. The North Carolina native returns having won the CDC Continental Cup, coming in as the number 5 seed and beating three players ranked ahead of him in Leonard Gates, Adam Sevada and David Cameron in the final to book his Ally Pally return. On that CDC circuit, Spellman had a fairly quiet season, winning just the single event and making one further final, which is OK but you'd have liked a bit more, leaving him just fifth in the rankings, meaning he did need to win that event to get here. Alex had a bit of a run in the Cross Border Challenge, losing out to former Lakeside finalist Jeff Smith at the semi final stage, but couldn't get into the North American Championship or the US Darts Masters. The tournament he did win however was the one that gave the Grand Slam ticket, where Alex was a bit disappointing - given a group of Humphries, Aspinall and Smith I wasn't expecting him to get out of the group or anything like that, but four legs and three averages below 85 wasn't what I was expecting. Spellman has played a lot of WDF events and is ranked in the top 10 in their system, winning three events outright and picking up points in a dozen events, so at least has some winning record this year outside the PDC and their affiliates.
This seems an easy enough section to call, or does it? Humphries should be absolutely fine to round three, while I think de Graaf should beat Lim comfortably enough I can't see a repeat of last year's heroics. Sedlacek should give Nijman a decent work out but Wessel should win that, and should win against whoever he plays - Clemens I think has an edge, but I don't think it's a huge edge. Then can Nijman pull the upset? Humphries has been losing to the other Dutch wonderkid at will, but has won their two meetings this year - both on the Euro Tour, but Wessel averaged just under a ton the first time and over a ton the second time which went all eleven legs, so he can certainly keep it close. If he'd got a couple more TV wins of note I'd feel a bit more confident in the chances he could pull the upset, but this player on this stage I think for now is a tad too far. Winner - Luke Humphries
Seems like it's been a pretty strong season for Aspinall, although it's been a case of different areas at different times to some degree. The start of the season was good TV form - justifying a controversial Premier League call up by reaching the playoffs, and hitting back to back major quarter finals, comfortably beating Gilding and Menzies at the Masters before a bit of a surprise loss to Dimitri van den Bergh, while at the UK Open he beat Lukeman, van der Velde and O'Connor before being drawn against Josh Rock. The mid season then switched to the Euro Tour, where Aspinall picked up his first title at that level in Göttingen, and would add two more later in the season, first in Leverkusen and later in Hildesheim to end top of the European Tour rankings and go into Dortmund as the number one seed. That didn't help that much, as TV results in the middle of the year were mostly misses - first round exits to Nijman and Humphries at Blackpool and Leicester respectively, at Dortmund that number 1 seeding didn't give him a great draw, he got past Rob Cross but then lost to Danny Noppert, and he couldn't get out of a fairly tough group at the Grand Slam which saw Humphries and Michael Smith advance. The season finished well however - he didn't play much on the floor but did hit two finals, losing to Damon Heta early on and Wattimena near the season end, but that was enough to get to the Players Championship Finals, where as the number 34 seed he got past the dangerous Karel Sedlacek, Richard Veenstra, Danny Noppert, Josh Rock and then Jermaine Wattimena to reach the final. There, he would be the favourite in terms of seeds by 2, but that doesn't help if you're facing Luke Littler. It looks like the injury issues he's had are either behind him, or at least manageable, so maybe he can go on a little run here.
Ilagan takes his PDC worlds appearance count up to double figures, but will be looking for just a second excursion into the second round and only his second win outside of short leg qualifiers (and I saw that proper win damnit). Lourence returns having won the Asian Championship, defending his title with wins over Christian Perez, Motomu Sakai and then Alexis Toylo in the final. This would have booked him a spot in the Grand Slam, but unfortunately he withdrew for medical reasons, so let's hope he'll be right for this and we don't need to see any alternates or byes. Ilagan's season was solid, finishing third in the Asian Tour rankings behind only Toylo and Sakai, winning a pair of titles in each of Dubai and Manila, which with that Asian Championship win saw Ilagan go 5-1 in finals for the season, showing he does it when it matters most. Lourence's numbers were solid, finishing only behind Seigo Asada on the Asian Tour (who played too limited a schedule to really count), and he's got plenty of experience on this stage, which will help somewhat. He also briefly dipped his toes into the WDF circuit, winning the pretty highly ranked Korea Open, beating Raymond Smith in the final which is a pretty solid scakp given he is the third favourite to win that event as of right now. Seems like an unfortunate draw, against many other players I'd have given him a legitimate shot of running his opponent close, but Nathan ought to be too good here.
Mickey will similarly reach a tenth appearance here, with a steady record of reaching the second round after taking quite some time to get a first win on the stage, nearly getting further last year having pushed Jonny Clayton to a deciding leg in the last 64. Mansell returns after a decent if unspectacular season on the Pro Tour, ending in the top ten of those who qualified through that method. A former Pro Tour title winner, Mickey didn't get close to adding a second, but did reach a couple of quarter finals but made only five board finals outside of that, two of them in the first four events of the season and two in the last three, leaving a concerning spell of 25 tournaments in the middle where he lost in the first or second round 23 times. He did pick up enough first round wins at least to get into the Players Championship Finals, but would be drawn against James Wade in the opening round and lose 6-3. The European Tour was a bit better, getting into a solid five events and picking up five wins, although one of those was a walkover win to book the only time he got past the second round. A couple of the first round wins were against decent opponents (de Decker, O'Connor) and he missed a match dart to knock Luke Humphries out in Kiel, so some alright performances for sure. His only other events were in the majors everyone can play - he was close to making the main draw of the Masters, notably beating Jimmy van Schie but dropping a deciding set to William Borland, while he drew Beau Greaves in the UK Open and went down 6-2 in the third round. Still a steady player capable of putting the pressure on many ranked higher than him.
Leonard Gates will make a third appearance here, and will be looking for at least a repeat of last year's second round game (where he lost to possible second round opponent Aspinall), having come through the opening game both times with wins over Geert Nentjes and, most recently, Cameron Menzies. Gates qualified through winning the Cross Border Challenge - it's not entirely clear whether there was a spot for this initially or if it got shifted on account of Matt Campbell not being able to use his spot, Gates having won it back in April well before the actual qualifying criteria were announced, but it doesn't really matter. In that event, Gates had three averages above 90, pushing up close to 100 in his final win over Jeff Smith, and never really looked troubled at any point. Leonard also won a pair of CDC titles, starting and finishing the season with one, but would go out in the quarter final stages of the North American Championship as well as the Continental Cup. Gates did also play the US Darts Masters, winning just the one leg against van Gerwen, and has been fairly prolific on the WDF circuit, winning three titles and getting to three further finals, which puts Gates second currently in their ranking system. He was also one of four players in this field to play in the final seniors' world event, but would lose there to Graham Usher in the quarter finals. Certainly with chances, especially if he can hit one of the patches we know he can where he can score heavily for fun (and isn't asked to do any counting).
de Decker has had an alright season, making some progress in some areas but not really pushing on massively after his somewhat surprising major title win in 2024. On the floor, Mike was OK - nine board wins, two of which went to the quarters, and another two got as far as the semis, but he was unable to reach a final or repeat his debut success from last year. Given the strength in depth there is these days, that isn't necessarily surprising and the record isn't bad, but you think maybe he might have got a touch more. Mike did however reach a final on the Euro Tour for the first time, nearly going all the way having beaten Thomas Lovely, Luke Humphries, Martin Schindler, Gerwyn Price and Ross Smith, but despite backing from being on home soil, Luke Littler was a bit too much to handle in the final. That however would be about the only success, he flicked between being just the right and wrong side of being seeded, and had quite a lot of second round exits, only getting to round three on three occasions, two of which he was a seeded player anyway. TV saw quick exits to Wade and Menzies in the first two major events (the Wade match at the Masters was at least close), but he would get a first Blackpool win against Dave Chisnall. His Grand Prix defence ended at the same stage, beating Peter Wright prior to a loss against Littler. James Wade would beat him heavily in the first round at Dortmund, he missed the Grand Slam, and at the Players Championship Finals he'd lose a deciding leg in a scrappy game with Cam Crabtree. Still playing alright, but maybe a touch overranked right now.
David Munyua will make his debut at this event, becoming the first Kenyan to appear in the tournament after winning the African qualifying event. While many were expecting that crown to go to Peter Wachiuri, it would be Munyua who would make it after Peter surprisingly went out in the early rounds. David progressed over a series of opponents, the quality of which is probably best described as a mixed bag, to get through to the final with Cameron Carolissen, who impressed to some extent last year at the worlds. Munyua was eventually able to make a break stick and lead 5-3, then serve it out, finishing with a couple of nervy seven visit kills, Carolissen missing darts to break at 7-6 and throw for the worlds spot. Probably his best performance came in the quarters where his average ticked over 85, so he can throw to an OK standard. There is a somewhat fledgling African circuit, where it looks like David played three events, losing early in two and in the quarter finals in another, and that's really all I can find about him.
Kevin Doets will make a third appearance here as one of the top players to come through the Pro Tour rankings, only just missing out on the top 40 spot, which he might well get next year should he repeat his success from twelve months ago where defeated Noa Lynn van Leuven, stunned Michael Smith in an overtime deciding set, and then got to the last sixteen with a deciding set win over Krzysztof Ratajski, perhaps being unlucky not to go further having led Chris Dobey 3-2 in sets. On the floor, Doets' record was solid - starting strong with an early run of four straight quarter final runs, he'd reach that stage or better on another four occasions throughout the season, peaking with a semi final run in Leicester in September, losing out to eventual winner Ryan Searle on that occasion. European action was disappointingly limited, being restricted to just four appearances, losing to Edhouse and Menzies in the first couple, getting a bit of a run together in Austria with wins over van Peer and Aspinall for a season best third round finish after just losing to Martin Schindler, then in Prague he beat Daryl Gurney before losing to Stephen Bunting. He's getting close to making the bigger majors but isn't quite there yet, which left TV appearances somewhat limited. He got to the main bracket of the World Masters, and might want a deciding leg loss to Peter Wright back, while at the UK Open he beat Greg Ritchie as you'd expect, before losing to Michael Smith as you'd likely also expect. Kevin did have a decent seeding at the Minehead return given his good floor performances, but would lose in the opening round to Callan Rydz. He did have a little cameo on the World Series stage, being invited to the Dutch event and beating Nathan Aspinall, nearly reaching the semis but just losing out to Gerwyn Price. This got him to the finals where he edged out Jermaine Wattimena and narrowly lost to Luke Humphries. A very competent player with a lot of time on his side, he just needs some sort of breakthrough result at some level to continue progression.
Matthew Dennant won his tour card just under two years ago, and is looking at a miracle run to try to save it, having not done a huge amount in 2024, but doing enough this time around to finish midway up the Pro Tour rankings and book a debut appearance here. Probably best known for some time as that guy who missed match darts to deny Glen Durrant a tour card, Dennant's had a fairly steady season on the Pro Tour, with a good early back to back run seeing him win his board and then reach the quarter finals in the next one, notably beating Danny Noppert in one of the events. A second quarter followed in July, but didn't win his board after that point for a fairly slow end to the season. Matthew made a trio of European Tour events, losing a deciding leg to Pietreczko in Wieze, beating Rowby John Rodriguez in Austria but losing to Martin Schindler, while in Budapest he'd beat Andrew Gilding but lose to Michael van Gerwen. That clearly wasn't enough to reach Dortmund, and he didn't do enough to get to the Players Championship Finals either, but as he only missed that by one or two wins, the combined money and expanded qualification spots saw him safely here. Dennant didn't do much in the majors he did get into - losing out in a group to Justin Hood and Pero Ljubic at the Masters would have been annoying, beating Hood but losing to Ljubic having been a set up, then in the UK Open he got a bye to round two, beat Andy Boulton, but lost to Thomas Lovely. He's alright statistically, but not really turned enough to make me think he's at a top 64 level right now.
This looks like it's another one that'll be seed against seed. Aspinall should have no trouble with Ilagan. I think Mansell has the beating of Gates, but if Leonard brings his best game it'll certainly be interesting. de Decker ought to have no problems against Munyua, while I think Doets is a clear tier or two ahead of Dennant. Can't see Nathan not reaching the third round. de Decker against Doets could be interesting. They've not played this year but as far as I can see Kevin has won their three meetings, two of them in moderately pressure situations with one being on last year's Euro Tour and the other being the semi of the Pro Tour that Doets made the final of in 2023. I think Mike has enough, but Kevin winning wouldn't shock me. Regardless, it's hard to look past Nathan given his body of work in 2025, the numbers aren't overwhelmingly in his favour and a 15-18 seeding battle ought in theory to be close, but Nathan's got course and distance here. Winner - Nathan Aspinall
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