Jesus, I know Rusty's in bad form, but losing in the first round of the quali? Sheeeeeeeeit. Well, the draw is out, the only other Austrian card holder is Suljovic, he's in and would be HNQ4 so I'll project assuming he's through, nobody else Austrian has enough legs to do a projection, so let's go - will be short/medium/long/composite as usual.
Joyce/Clemens - 49/46/56/50
Pietreczko/Kovacs - insufficient data on Kovacs
Zonneveld/Hurrell - 49/50/54/51
Gilding/whoever - insufficient/no data on whoever
O'Connor/Ostlund - insufficient data on Ostlund
Ratajski/whoever - insufficient/no data on whoever
Springer/Kenny - 67/67/63/66
Doets/Landman - 86/85/79/83
Chisnall/Reyes - 44/41/48/44
Cullen/Owen - 62/58/58/59
Sedlacek/Huybrechts - 37/38/48/41
Wright/whoever - insufficient/no data on whoever
van Barneveld/Soutar - 18/17/39/25
Menzies/Suljovic - 47/49/53/50
van Duijvenbode/Razma - 74/72/75/74
Smith/White - 59/68/68/65
So, with Doets picking up a first title this week, and Greaves grabbing one as well, it's time to do the periodic "who do we think will be the next winner at each level" post. Except this time, I won't do it for the majors, because frankly, who's even close right now? I would say maybe Rock, but given how far he's been off the pace in the Premier League, I don't know really. Frankly it might be Mitchell Lawrie. At least with the Euro Tour and Pro Tour, you've got a fair chance of not running into Littler to need to win one, so let's go with those two.
Euro Tour (excludes Littler, Humphries, van Veen, van Gerwen, Clayton, Anderson, Bunting, Rock, Noppert, Wade, Price, Aspinall, Schindler, R Smith, Heta, de Decker, Cross, Chisnall, Gurney, van den Bergh, Edhouse, Ratajski, Nijman, Wright, M Smith, Gilding, Pietreczko, Cullen, van Barneveld, White, Springer, Suljovic, Huybrechts, Hopp, King):
1 - Chris Dobey - It's still pretty darned insane that he has not won one of these yet, and even more insane that he's still only been to one final, and that was back in 2019! He's still playing at an elite level, still being seeded through to the second round (although he's been given a bit of a stinker of a draw today), and still winning titles at the Pro Tour level. We've been saying when rather than if for Chris for quite some time now, and it's still true.
2 - Ryan Searle - May not be playing at quite as high a level as Dobey is, but due to that worlds semi he's going to be in the seeds for quite some time, and has shown enough on the stage that if he keeps plugging away, it'll click eventually.
3 - Dirk van Duijvenbode - Seems like he's been quiet for a bit, and doesn't have the advantage of the other two above as he'll have to go through an additional round each time, but in terms of pure statistics he is very much up there in terms of having a shot. He's not too dissimilar to Nijman and he's winning fucking everything right now, he's been to multiple stage finals, and it really wouldn't surprise anyone.
4 - Kevin Doets - Now that the first title is in the bank, is this going to take the brakes off him? I'd suggest it might. As of right now he's only getting the first round automatic call ups, but with no Matchplay or Grand Prix money to defend, he might start going up the rankings pretty quickly (he's currently in the low 20's in terms of a WC seed projection) and get there, particularly if he can bink a second Pro Tour or get through an opening round. We've seen him win some pretty big stage games in the past, so it could translate to this level pretty easily.
5 - Luke Woodhouse - After those four, I think there's a pretty big gap and no really obvious number five. So I'll just take the highest ranked player who has not got a title of any description, the numbers in my database are basically adjacent to Searle who we've got there already, so I'll use him to round out the group.
Pro Tour (additionally excludes Searle, Dobey, Wattimena, Joyce, Menzies, van Duijvenbode, Doets, Rydz, Dolan, O'Connor, Williams, Mansell, de Graaf, Soutar, Brooks, Plaisier, Bialecki, Greaves, de Zwaan):
1 - Niels Zonneveld - I've said a few times on various things in the past that his career has somewhat mirrored Doets', so it would make perfect sense for him to be the next player to step up. Numbers are more than competent, he's been close a few times, converting one seems to be something that'll happen sooner rather than later.
2 - Cristo Reyes - It might surprise a few that he didn't win a tournament in his first PDC run, but he didn't. That said, we know what his peak is and he's looked pretty darned good so far. He's not helped by starting from fresh, but if he keeps chugging away, he may bink one regardless, but could pretty easily get into a spot where he'd have a seed or be close to it by the end of the year.
3 - Justin Hood - To be honest, I'd have expected a bit more out of Justin in 2026, who's been extremely quiet after his worlds breakout party. However, he did reach a final last month, and we know he can put together a string of really good performances, the seasonal numbers aren't too dissimilar to Zonneveld's. He does have kind of the same problem that Reyes does in that he won't be getting too many kind draws, but also like Reyes he is good enough to play through those.
4 - James Hurrell - I've frequently picked players on these that have had a history of doing well in BDO/WDF type events, as I think those sorts of events are the sort where if you've had some success, it shows the type of schedule you need to come through to get a Pro Tour. He had a good worlds and is now firmly situated within the top 64, so has shown he absolutely belongs at this level.
5 - Karel Sedlacek - Think this is the last player that's got seasonal scoring of over 90 that has a tour card (note that, for these lists, I only consider players with a card) but doesn't have a title. That's not for lack of trying, as he's got himself up into the top 32 on the Pro Tour order of merit. Has a very nice peak game, getting deep on a few occasions in the last twelve months, wouldn't take much more to take it all the way to the hoop.
6 - Charlie Manby - Oh wait, I forgot one guy who's scoring over 90. Worlds was a lot of fun, and we've seen very good levels of play on the secondary tours, it's not quite happened for him yet on the Pro Tour, but the ceiling is so high for him that once he's used to the full time schedule, he can absolutely get there.
7 - Jimmy van Schie - We've known he's a classy operator for quite a lot of time, van Schie's another one that might need a little time to get to grips with the PDC schedule, but once he's done so, he's another where the sky is the limit.
8 - Richard Veenstra - He's been in these lists before, but is back on here after a turn up in form over the last few months. There's not a lot to say that wouldn't be just replicating what's been said for a few players already, he's on the fringes of the top 32 on the Pro Tour so will absolutely get the chances.
9 - Tom Bissell - Who thought we'd be saying this twelve months ago? Pretty much unknown when he won his card, he has absolutely improved a ton in year two and has seasonal scoring a lot better than a lot of long established names, and he's converted this into decent results with multiple Pro Tour semi finals already this year. He's less than five grand off of making the Grand Prix as things stand - get a little bit of a run going in Riesa and he's right up there.
10 - Keane Barry - With so many youngsters coming through and making huge names for themselves, Keane can often get a bit overlooked, however Keane's looking like he's starting to put things together at the senior level, with a solid enough record in the last twelve months in terms of progression of results, if he just keeps his head down and keeps working, he'll likely get a shot in the near future.
There's a few others I could have mentioned. Clemens still hasn't won one which is still a surprise, Ricky Evans has been very close multiple times, then we've got a few players like Scutt, Meikle, Gawlas etc who are all still fairly young and have shown enough of a flash that would make you think that it's not unreasonable they have everything go right on one day.
Anyhow that Austrian qualifier is still going on and showing no signs of ending any time soon so I'm off to the pub.
