Matchplay fast approaching

Well that's another Euro Tour in the books and it's yet another win for Nijman, making it an astonishing eight titles and we're not even half way through the year (although we're well over half way through all the tournaments that will be played. At this stage, one's got to think that he's played himself into a spot where he should be being considered for a World Series call up in 2027, I would use the P-word but until he does something on TV, you can't really consider it yet. Heck, they've spurned players who HAVE done something on TV multiple times in the past, so even that doesn't mean anything. He's top five in scoring this year of players that you think would play the PL (I'm excluding Anderson here) behind only the two Lukes, Price and Dobey, so the game is there and the titles are there. Except on TV. Here's what it's done to the FRH rankings:

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Jonny Clayton

5 Ryan Searle (UP 3)

6 Wessel Nijman (UP 5)

7 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 1)

8 James Wade (DOWN 3)

9 Josh Rock (DOWN 2)

10 Danny Noppert (DOWN 1)

11 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

12 Chris Dobey

13 Stephen Bunting

14 Nathan Aspinall (UP 1)

15 Ross Smith (UP 2)

16 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 2)

17 Luke Woodhouse (DOWN 1)

18 Jermaine Wattimena

19 Krzysztof Ratajski

20 Rob Cross (NEW)

I didn't immediately post this as Nijman was so close to Searle (who got a nice bump after a Pro Tour final) that he might have got into the top 5. Not yet, but give it until the end of the week and he'll be there. Everyone else in a fairly close race between 4th and 11th shuffles down a bit, apart from Clayton who's got a small buffer at the top. Aspinall and Smith having good runs moves them above MvG who's looking like he's going to need to really go deep in the worlds to maintain any sort of ranking. He's only just in the top 20 in the tour card race. Cross picking up a bit of form with a Pro Tour win and Sunday's final sees him back into the top 20. A bit lower down since the last one, de Decker's found a little bit of form and arrested the slide, although realistically he's out of the Matchplay at this point, Beau Greaves is into the top 64, surprise Pro Tour finalist Maik Kuivenhoven is just shy of the top 75, while another good floor run for Tom Bissell gets him into the top 80. In other Tom news, Sykes is up into the top 100 after a fantastic Euro Tour debut.

I would talk about the Matchplay race, but it's really pretty dull at this point. There's only two events left before the cutoff, I thought ET10 counted but it doesn't. As such, there's really only three spots to play for and Gurney, Menzies and Heta have a big edge. Heta's over 5k ahead of Chisnall who's the last one out. Huybrechts, Bialecki and Sedlacek are within 10k of Heta, but that's a Pro Tour final so is going to be a very tough ask. de Graaf and Veenstra are mathematically alive but would need a win and some help (Veenstra actually needs more than a win being just over 15k behind). The next two are remarkably Cristo Reyes and Beau Greaves but that's only noted for just how good they're both playing. The Grand Prix race looks a lot more interesting but we'll cross that bridge after the Matchplay.

ET9 round 4

Not too often that you win two bets with the same three figure checkout in each player's last possible chance to hold, but we got there, Jermaine also did the job so that session saw a very healthy profit. Into the quarters now, not that I usually project the semis/final in the running anyway, but won't today, but will give a quick twelve month gauge for some possibilities. Anyway, quarters:

Cross/Aspinall - 43/40/40/41

Sykes/Wattimena - 49/48/48/48

Gilding/Smith - 36/37/37/37

de Decker/Nijman - 38/33/36/36

Not a huge amount of seasonal/form variation there, only the last one shifting any significant amount and even that isn't a big deal. In the top half, if it was Aspinall/Wattimena, that'd be around a 60/40 in Nathan's favour, and if it was Smith/Nijman in the bottom half that'd be really too close to call, maybe Wessel's just edging it. Aspinall's pretty similar to Nijman's numbers in a potential final year long as well. So we could be in for some tight ones - we thought that this afternoon, and Nijman and Aspinall crushing aside, we weren't too far wrong with everything else going 10+ legs, so this could be a late one.

ET9 round 3

Wasn't much of value on day 2. Heta losing to Doets, meh, that's fine, Kevin's playing great, just seemed a tad overvalued. Then Tom Sykes. Very nice. Only takes us back to where we started at the outset of the tournament, but hey, definitely the MVP of this event so far. Onto the last sixteen.

Cross/Doets - 46/41/47/45

Searle/Aspinall - 46/48/46/47

Menzies/Sykes - 43/45/48/45

Noppert/Wattimena - 42/48/50/47

van Gerwen/Gilding - 64/60/63/62

Dobey/Smith - 54/50/52/52

Joyce/de Decker - 35/38/38/37

Bunting/Nijman - 39/40/50/43

Christ. Not a single projection anywhere that is more than a 2-1 dog, and only six of 24 are greater than 60-40 one way or another. This ought to be a good one.

ET9 round 2 part 1

Getting this out of the way as I'll be watching the US WC game later and don't want to rush back and have to go through sixteen games. Probably after having a few. Bonus points if you can spot the deliberate mistake in the previous post - of course Pratnemer can't play in the home nation qualifier for this. That'd require him to be from Slovakia, and not Slovenia. Small distinction, but one that we'll try not to repeat. Down small on this section, mainly thanks to Pratnemer and/or Hood not converting a 4-1 lead. Thorpe gave us a nice pick up, but while King, Bates and Engstrom did alright for minimum plays, none of them got really near enough to make things exciting. Got three more pending tonight, DvD hitting against what hopefully might be a bit tired late call up in Razma (although, to be fair, we don't know when the withdrawal took place and he might have known for weeks and the PDC just didn't make it public until the draw) will be the key one but got another couple of small plays at evens as well. Anyway, those first eight games:

de Decker/O'Connor - 44/43/49/45

Heta/Doets - 44/45/47/45

Nijman/Pratnemer - 82/81/80/81

Wattimena/Chisnall - 62/64/64/63

Dobey/Thorpe - 75/73/75/74

Woodhouse/Gilding - 65/59/54/59

Clayton/Joyce - 66/68/72/69

Bunting/Zonneveld - 50/52/61/54

Actually, I'll just list the eight undecided ones here, and then edit the post later rather than making a fresh one:

Noppert/Razma - 64/61/65/63

Searle/Huybrechts - 51/55/61/56

Aspinall/Long - 86/80/83/83

Schindler/Sykes - 44/46/48/46

Price/Menzies - 74/80/74/76

van Veen/Cross - 50/67/65/61

van Gerwen/Ratajski - 57/53/62/57

Smith/Cullen - 58/61/64/61

If I end up bokking Menzies, Cross or Cullen by saving two seconds now and not listing their opponents then so be it :)

ET9 round one

So now we head to Slovenia, where Pratnemer didn't read the rules, and didn't enter his home nation qualifier, made it anyway, so we've got five home players in the draw. 71, 77, 73, 77, 76, 85, 77, 68, 79, 72, 69, 71, 72, 67, 72, 76, 62, 72. That's the averages from the players in the HNQ that actually made it. Of course there's going to be some level of drag factor but holy shit this could be even worse than those early Hungary Euro Tours in terms of quality, I'd bet the farm on under 10 legs won by the qualifiers, and if they got five that'd be a pretty huge achievement, no combination of who they could play would be remotely easy given the PDC riggage of the draws, but Cross, Menzies, Chisnall and Zonneveld is pretty tough regardless. At least in terms of other randoms, we know Kelemen but he has insufficient data throughout, while Engstrom only has long data, so we've got ten games to have a look at in full.

Hood/Pratnemer - 79/78/74/77

Sedlacek/Thorpe - 62/58/59/60

Gilding/King - 56/59/59/58

Doets/Bates - 71/70/69/70

O'Connor/de Graaf - 48/50/51/50

Joyce/Engstrom - 66

van Duijvenbode/Razma - 76/70/72/73

Huybrechts/Barry - 65/66/63/65

Gurney/Long - 78/63/66/69

Springer/Sykes - 44/47/45/45

Ratajski/Reyes - 58/60/53/57

Some notes. Thorpe does seem legitimately that close, as does Gilding. Long being that big a dog on that short sample seems odd but the numbers say he is just that bad. Sykes has a pretty significant consistency issue, but at the same time, Springer's is as well and the overall numbers are close to identical. Then you have Ratajski/Reyes, which is equal parts fun and disgusting for a first round match. Also big props for when you host a Euro Tour in a country for the first time, and put their best player (and you can stick an ever in that sentence as well) on first in the afternoon. Seriously, the PDC need to get fucked at times.

So how did those WC tiers go?

I'll just give a good/ok/bad/ugly rating for each of them. In ascending order of what the teams did:

India - Expectations were low for sure, but one leg won and averages of 72 and 70 didn't even clear the lowest of low bars. OK

Mongolia - I had a bit more hope than India given how much the country has improved over the last couple of years, and an OK group, but they were almost as bad. Ugly

Portugal - Didn't think they'd do much, but a weak showing in their winnable game puts the projection pretty much on point. Good

New Zealand - Tough draw for sure, but even though I didn't think they'd get much change out of it, I'd have thought at least getting an 80 average was likely, but they couldn't even manage that. OK

Thailand - Had the lowest of low expectations, and while they did get three legs, the averages were just not there so I'm calling this one a win. Good

Finland - Prediction said there's a fair chance of a bad result, but getting boatraced by Hungary and finishing bottom makes them exceed that by quite a bit. OK

China - Gave them half a chance of getting a positive result here. France gave them an open lane but they missed the lay up. Bad

Australia - Oh boy, we said the group was a minefield, and they stepped on every one, losing the decider against the US then going completely to pieces against Canada. Ugly

Gibraltar - OK so these were a late call up, did a little bit better than what I would have guessed if I knew that, but meh, no prediction no rating. Uganda is void

Croatia - We thought this had fairly good equity to not get out of the group, or even finish bottom, which they did, two 3-4 losses is maybe harsh but it's well within the realms of what we thought. Good

Trinidad and Tobago - Prediction looked perfect after game one where they got two legs but barely averaged 60. Then they beat a team that was sitting on a double to reach the semi finals earlier. Nice work but makes the prediction fail. Ugly

Slovenia - Averaged 79 in both games, splitting them one a piece. Not sure how to rate that, it's not good but they got points, so I guess it's slightly better than I thought. OK

Japan - We recognised this was a tough group, and they got the win over the weak seed but lost to the strong non seed. We somewhat hedged our bets, and it wasn't too bad a call. OK

Singapore - Pretty much bang on. Ireland were too strong, but they averaged well, then played worse but beat the last minute call ups from Gib, who were probably a tougher opponent. Good

Lithuania - Repeat everything we just said. Lost the match they should, won the match they should, played better at least in terms of averages in the former (but, as we know, that's what happens with averages). Good

Philippines - Had real high expectations, but woefully underperformed against the hosts. Even if they turned up they probably still wouldn't have won, and they recovered really well, but the damage was done. Bad

Hong Kong - You did the hard part! You beat the seed, and got into a match where you only needed three legs to get into a playoff, or all four to advance outright. And you shat the bed and won two. Bad

Denmark - Wow, they were not good. Thankfully they had India playing awfully so got a win, but that was substandard. I'm only giving partial credit to myself here but that's more due to being wrong about India than these. OK

Italy - Had some optimism here, but losing to Latvia straight out of the gates basically killed it. Did the job against T&T but given the shocking last game they fell just short when this could have been more. Bad

Canada - Pretty middle of the road stuff really. If you had said they would get one win I wouldn't have picked the one they did, but after they did beat Australia they couldn't convert. Bad

South Africa - Pretty much what I thought. Sweden were too strong, despite SA averaging five points more, but then fell apart scoring wise in the second game, but as they were playing Mongolia they won anyway. Good

Switzerland - This pick was alright I think. Poland were predictably strong, but it was these who got the win, mainly because Portugal were maybe a bit worse than expected. I'll call it OK, but much like Denmark, it's not down to the Swiss really. OK

Austria - Probably an overestimate. They smashed China as you would think, and actually looked good, but par here was getting out of the group and they ought to have beaten France, but didn't. They played better than I thought, but got worse results, so this stinks both ways. Bad

Hungary - I think I can call this a win. Best possible result you can get when finishing second in a group is outperforming expectations, shame they couldn't get that last leg against Norway. Good

Norway - Speaking of which, we hit the KO stages and these lost 8-0 to Scotland. The group was read as somewhat even and I did give them a chance of doing this, so while calling it C isn't great, I don't think it's a total loss. OK

Spain - Thought they would perform pretty well, and as thought, they got out of the group. Given the draw they did get, they really couldn't get past the top 16, but I can't mark myself down for that. Good

USA - This was good stuff. I thought everyone had some equity in the group, but I think the US actually sweeping it, and then pushing Wales fairly decently in the last sixteen might be a fair bit more solid than I gave them credit for. OK

Poland - These on the other hand ought to have done better. The group went as expected, and the game against Ireland was perfectly winnable, but not a gimmie, they just weren't at the races. Not calling it ugly as it wasn't an easy draw, but it wasn't the win I thought it'd be. Bad

Sweden - Fairly bang on. Won the group as expected. Would have needed a really favourable draw to have much chance of going further. Netherlands wasn't it although they at least kept it close. Good

Czechia - This is kind of similar, win group then get awkward draw and lose, but I can't give it the same result as Germany was a much easier draw than the Netherlands, and I had more optimism out of the gate. OK

Belgium - This was so nearly a very good prediction, but then they contrived to escape the group thanks to Hong Kong fucking it up. It's still an underperformance and they certainly didn't play well, but I can't give myself the complete win here. OK

France - This is a weird one. Thought meh, and they definitely performed meh in the groups, but as neither opponent could really get it done, they did much better in terms of results than I thought, and were a leg away from the quarters despite not even averaging 80 in that game. Bad

Germany - One of three 5-8 seeds to lose where they should. I thought they'd do worse, mainly because the Philippines were a real potential banana skin, but that game was over in a flash, then they got an alright draw in Czechia and held their nerve. Netherlands were too strong, but by that point they'd already done much better than I thought. Ugly

Ireland - I'm not sure what to make of this. I thought they might do better than the seeding suggested, and they matched it, but their scoring was very solid and they come through Poland who were seemingly everyone's dark horse, so I'm not sure I can call it bad. OK

Wales - Calling this one good I think is fair. Made no mistakes in the group (although one average was a bit smelly), steadily got to the last eight with a favourable draw, then got the worst possible quarter, but got to a decider somehow before making an absolute meal out of 84 for the match and not getting a dart even at the bull. Or even leaving yourself on a double if you did come back. Good

Latvia - Always got to be one team that hugely outperforms, and it's Razma and Melderis this time. Getting out of the group was weird as hell given how things played out, but they did, which puts them at below par for the course in some sense, then they get the god draw, almost fuck it up, but somehow scrape home and get down to 24 in a deciding leg. Only for NI to kill 144. Bad

Northern Ireland - Scrape through two games 8-7, both against teams they should comfortably beat, then run into a genuinely good team and get completely shoed. I said par for the course, 3 seed going out in the semis feels that way, it doesn't feel right to say good but I think I have to. Good

Scotland - Play team you're massively better than - average 99, win 8-0. Play team you're better than, but not hugely better than - average 99 again, win 8-5. Play team you're worse than, average drops 11 points and you win three legs. I said par for the course, I said they're not beating England, this is exactly what happened. Good

Netherlands - Did pretty much what they were supposed to. Had a tricky first game, but got progressively better in the second and third, until England turned on the afterburners in the final. I put par for the course as I really wasn't confident in them reaching the final, so didn't want to say S tier. They did get there, so while I can say my prediction was right, I don't want to get super credit for having what turned out to be excessive pessimism. OK

England - Team Luke wins. As you would expect. Spain gave them a battle as you would expect, and Wales kept things closer than you might have thought, but neither the semi nor the final were particularly close. I said should reach the final, they did, they weren't that impressive until they got there, but that still seems to be a win. Good

And that completes the tier list recap. We have Pro Tour events Tuesday/Wednesday, and then a Euro Tour on the Friday. IRL stuff means that anything I do get our for the latter might be either on really short notice or right after the draw, but I'll try to get something done.

Brief update and World Cup tier list

What a great tournament that was. Luke Woodhouse has the London buses effect and jumps straight from Pro Tour winner to Euro Tour winner in less than a couple of weeks, our balance increases 30% recovering all the damage that has been done of late, then on the Pro Tour we have another surprising winner, although this time a repeat winner in Jeffrey de Graaf. Ross Smith did nicely to get the other one, while Willie O'Connor removed pretty much any chance of a missing the Matchplay calamity with a great trio of events. Veenstra picked up over 10k to keep outside shots alive (although the Grand Prix might be a more realistic ask), Cristo Reyes continued very solid form, Jimmy van Schie had a very decent Euro Tour and kept things ticking over on the floor, and yesterday Henry Coates had a very surprising semi final run. Here's the new FRH rankings:

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Jonny Clayton (UP 1)

5 James Wade (UP 1)

6 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 2)

7 Josh Rock

8 Ryan Searle

9 Danny Noppert

10 Gary Anderson

11 Wessel Nijman

12 Chris Dobey

13 Stephen Bunting

14 Michael van Gerwen

15 Nathan Aspinall

16 Luke Woodhouse (UP 2)

17 Ross Smith (DOWN 1)

18 Jermaine Wattimena (DOWN 1)

19 Krzysztof Ratajski

20 Martin Schindler

Yeah, not really much doing. Smudger unlucky to go down one despite a Pro Tour win, but Woodhouse did much more. Price hasn't picked up anything since April, so Clayton making a Pro Tour semi and Wade just turning up puts them above him.

We've got a bit of a lull now, so let's ignore the Nordic Darts Exhibition and go straight on to the second most important World Cup of the month, the Frankfurt Pairs Exhibition. Here I'm going to do a tier list, broken down by the following:

S - should reach the final

A - should greatly exceed expectations

B - might do better than expected

C - probably par for the course

D - will likely underachieve

F - dumpster fire making up the numbers

This is all going to be mostly in comparison to the team's seeding, or lack thereof. So bear that in mind before I shit on your country.

(1) England (Littler/Humphries) - This is by far the strongest team ever compiled for this event, if you want to make some arguments about some of the Taylor/Lewis or MvG/Barney sorts of teams, you can do, but I'd disagree. Based on seasonal scoring, Littler is top by a point from Price (who isn't here), who's second from Humphries by less than two tenths of a point, who's nearly two points ahead of the next best player. Their edge is huge, which'll make it all the more funny when they lose their first game again. Tier - S

(2) Netherlands (van Veen/van Gerwen) - For some reason I thought van Gerwen was missing this one. Which thankfully he isn't, as if he missed it, you still wouldn't get the strongest Dutch player there is right now, as Noppert is third ranked. van Gerwen is at least second, but there's another two players (Doets, DvD) before you even get to van Veen in the Dutch rankings. They're doing enough that they should do OK, but as the number 2 seed, do I feel confident in them reaching the final? Not really, but with everyone else looking pretty weak as well, they might. Tier - C

(3) Northern Ireland (Rock/Gurney) - The defending champions at least have some sort of chance. Rock's somewhat reeling from a disaster of a PL debut, and has dropped a tad, while it seems like I lay Gurney every week who's scoring under 90. They're clearly not as good as the Dutch are, but with the standards being so bad in this tournament as a general rule, I can't rule them out going deep again. Tier - C

(4) Scotland (Anderson/Menzies) - This is a tough one to call. On one hand you've got Anderson, who still maintains elite levels of play and is probably the strongest non-Englishman who's turning up, then you've got Menzies, who's making a debut here and flips between brilliant and crazy, often within the same match. Think it depends a lot on which Cammy turns up, if he's decent this could well be par for the course (as even if he does turn up, I can't see them beating England), if he doesn't then I'm not sure how much Anderson would be able to carry the team. At least it's not Wright that's here, but frankly Soots is playing better now. Tier - C

(5) Germany (Schindler/Pietreczko) - Oh boy. Schindler, while not exactly playing badly, is a fair bit off the level that saw him pick up Euro Tours, while Pietreczko seems to be struggling with some sort of dartitis like thing, on occasions it looks like he's worked out something to manage it to some degree, on others, not so much. Even when he's winning, he doesn't look good. With the home crowd, they'll get some help, but Springer and Clemens are scoring better than Pietreczko is, heck, Gruellich, Weber, Hofkens and Gotthardt all are. I can see scenarios where they don't get out of the group, and if they do, there's probably more bad draws than good ones. Tier - D

Philippines (Toylo/Nebrida) - I'll do the teams in the group with each of the seed to keep things a bit compartmentalised. This is always going to be a competitive nation, arguably the strongest in Asia, and you've got the 2/3 on the Asian Tour rankings, both of whom have a lot of experience on the big stage at this point in their careers. I'd like the numbers to be a bit better than they are, but this is totally a team that could cause upsets. Tier - B

New Zealand (Tata/Robb) - This is a pairing that feels like it should always do better than it actually does. They've had plenty of players who I've thought might make the breakthrough to tour card level (and holding it before anyone mentions Puha), but it's just not happened although I think Robb has that upside. They just don't play enough darts outside of New Zealand to really get the miles in at a competitive level, which at least financially is understandable. Tough draw. Tier - D

(6) Belgium (de Decker/van den Bergh) - Oh my god what an absolute shitshow this might be. de Decker has fallen off a cliff completely since winning his major and is nowhere near the Matchplay, despite being twentieth in the world and getting a huge number of Euro Tour shots as a result, while van den Bergh is even worse and is somehow in real danger of losing his tour card. Neither is scoring over 90 per turn this year, the best Belgian by a mile (Huybrechts) is below both in the rankings so isn't here, I do wish they should change the rules so that they just pick the top player by rights and they pick their partner, christ DvdB is less than a tenth of a point per turn ahead of Vandenbogaerde who's done basically nothing since having his card reprieved. If anything, Baetens is stronger than both of these and he doesn't even have a card right now. Tier - D

Hong Kong (Leung/Lee) - This is a fun pairing who got out of the groups last time (admittedly maybe the easiest group you could reasonably construct) and then beat Sweden in a bit of an upset. They've both won on the Asian Tour this year, and while like the Philippines I'd like a bit more in terms of numbers, they have a knack of getting the job done. Which they very well might. Tier - B

Slovenia (Pratnemer/Bazicek) - These make a return after forever after Benjamin won his tour card after looking decent on the WDF etc circuits for some time, and he's looked competent enough once getting there without doing anything to make us really think he'll keep his card right now (he's outside the worlds race). The other guy I know little about, other than doing a quick google, seeing he played Q-School, and seeing that the average there started with a six. Well that's that then. I mean they have a tour card holder so I'm not sure this is dumpster fire level, but it's going to need Pratnemer to have the carry of his life. Tier - D

(7) Wales (Clayton/Kenny) - I mean if Price turned up then this would be S tier without any thought, but if Price turned up they'd get a first round bye, so here they are at 7. Clayton has had a great Premier League, and is in the top ten of players here very comfortably, and that should see them well enough. Kenny is up with him, and he's OK but not having the greatest of years, with his scoring down well around the mid 80's and results outside of the worlds race. Clearly this is a step down over Price, but it's a huge step down over Owen as well who's outperforming Kenny by miles but is behind him by like one Pro Tour win. Shame, with Owen I'd put this at A-tier, but all I can say for what we've got is that they've got basically no chance of getting knocked out in the groups, and the quarters, draw dependent, looks like a possibility with at least a puncher's chance. Tier - B

Lithuania (Labanauskas/Barauskas) - This is the same team they've had for years, and is another one alright, one not so much pairing. Darius is pretty solid, but they've just not been able to get anyone close to him, and if Barauskas is still the second best player they've got, it's a problem given he's not even in the top 32 of the Nordic/Baltic tour. They're probably the stronger of the non-seeds in this group, but way, way off the top one. So second looks obvious on paper and very hard to argue against. Tier - C

Thailand (Ouamuapa/Rodman) - These are back after a couple of years away, and it's a whole new team that I know absolutely nothing about. Ouamuapa had seemingly one Asian Tour quarter last season where he looked bad. Rodman I have zero on. If you combined their Asian Tour winnings this year, they wouldn't even break the top 80. Nice that you're back, but thanks for coming. Tier - F

(8) Ireland (O'Connor/Mansell) - So Mickey has switched from north to south, and got himself back in the team, this being at the expense of Barry, who's scoring better than Mansell and getting just as good a set of results this season. So harsh on Keane and yet another one that isn't picking their strongest side, but Mansell can hardly be described as bad (and seems like the perfect sort of player that would disrupt even more than pairs affects quick players) and in O'Connor they have someone who is performing at a very high level. The group looks easy, and I think I prefer their chances out of any of seeds 5-7 to get a good run going. Sure, it's draw dependent, but they have a real good shot of outperforming their seeding, and ought to at least match it. Tier - B

Singapore (Lim/Tan) - Lim we know everything about already, while Tan is here for a second year and not doing dreadfully on the Asian Tour (at least in terms of results, on the rare times he's got deep the numbers aren't really convincing). This looks like another team like Lithuania that given the group, a 1-1 projection seems extremely easy to make and one that should be matched a huge chunk of the time. Tier - C

Uganda (Ocheng/Said) - Always cool to see new nations getting represented. Always also cool to try to work out who the hell these people are. Quick look at the small amount of African data I can find is not pretty. Will be a nice experience, but incredibly tough to see them getting a win, heck, might be tough to see them getting more than a couple of legs. Tier - F

(9) Poland (Ratajski/Bialecki) - Now this is what we're talking about. Ratajski is playing at a hell of a strong level, scoring in the top ten of players that are at the tournament, and is actually twelfth overall in this season, while Bialecki is putting in very strong work himself, scoring just a tad under 90 and very much in the Matchplay race (he's last man out right now). We've seen Polish teams put up obscene numbers in the past, and this is a team that's got a more than manageable group with the quality and upside that there's only really a couple of teams that should seriously worry them. It's an obvious dark horse, but it is what it is. Tier - A

Portugal (Camacho/de Sousa) - Hard to know what to make of these. Jose is the obvious name but has really done little since the loss to Pietreczko at the worlds secured him losing his tour card, he does have some small Challenge Tour winnings, but it's actually below Camacho, which given what Luis did at Q-School in terms of statistics is a bit of a worry. This isn't the worst chance they'll have of getting a win, but it's not great either. Tier - D

Switzerland (Bellmont/Walpen) - These might be the better team than Portugal on paper, what with Bellmont having a card and Walpen having probably more experience at a PDC level than Camacho has, but I'm still not convinced that they're any good at this level. I kind of should say that one of them or Portugal should be C as I'm not really sure who's better, it's probably these but they could easily lose that match. Tier - D

(10) Sweden (de Graaf/Lukasiak) - It's some timing for Sweden that Jeffrey both chose to be Swedish, and also got a Pro Tour win on the eve of the tournament. He's looking extremely strong, arguably the highest level he's been at since joining the PDC, and while Lukasiak (and a lot of the other Swedes) has not really impressed, and might not be better than Tingstrom (or, for that matter, Harrysson), they all have something about them, even if levels of optimism about Swedish darts have been limited from a couple of years ago. It's a good group, and if they get a favourable knockout draw, then maybe they can do something, but I think there's more teams they'd prefer to avoid. Tier - C

South Africa (Filby/Petersen) - Hey, do you guys remember when Devon Petersen won a Euro Tour? Yeah, those were weird times. Probably fair to say that he's nowhere near that level now, and Filby's a name we've seen for a bit but is nothing special. Do they have enough to beat Mongolia? Probably. Could they do something special and beat Sweden? Maybe? If JdG wasn't playing quite as well as he is then I could perhaps see a B rating, as is, I'm guessing just middle of the road. Tier - C

Mongolia (Myagmarsuren/Lkhagvasuren) - The fun I've had with data entry noting down some of these players when they've done some decent work on the Asian Tour. They're really not doing too badly - both of these are in the top 20, and their tour averages of mid 70's isn't that horrible. Will they come in as underdogs? Sure. Will the debutants have the crowd on their side? Probably. Are they good enough that they might be able to spring a surprise win? Against who they've got, I don't hate the chances. This may look silly if they both shit the bed on a big stage debut, but there's a chance. Tier - B

(11) Australia (Heta/Leek) - The Whitlock streak is over, with Simon not having a card and Adam Leek now having one, making selection more or less automatic. Leek has been solid and maybe running a touch bad in terms of results (real good consistency score), while Heta is kind of the same, still playing very good stuff, but maybe quite not at the peak levels he has. Not far off though, any team with a top 20 player (if you want to argue Heta isn't any more, be my guest) and a competent enough card holder as support has somewhat of a shot. Damon's right next to Clayton in the scoring and Leek's right above Kenny, so why wouldn't we think they might outperform? The group, to be sure, is a minefield, but get through that and who knows. It's only the group that doesn't make me want to put them higher. Tier - B

USA (Sevada/Buntz) - The US reverts to having a competitive team for the first time in a few years, can't blame van Dongen for having turned up to collect a pay check (as they would spell it, and also seemingly still use, remarkably) but the unfortunate combination of him and Lauby, who for my money is worse than either of Adam or Stowe, left them looking awful. Now they have no card holders so are using I guess the CDC rankings, and likely have the strongest team they have. Maybe Spellman has an argument. I don't really know what the expectation is here. I don't think either of them are worse than Leek is. Would only take Heta to have a little bit of an off day that any result is on the table. As this tier says "might", I'm fine with it. Tier - B

Canada (Long/Cameron) - A vastly experienced team here, Long in the second year of a card where he's really not looked quite as much of a waste of a card as I feared he might have been, while Cameron continues to look alright, although with the absence of the Seniors Tour now, maybe not playing quite as much as I'd like, but still seems fine at CDC level. That match against the USA is going to be one for the ages and may well be too close to call. So I think I need to go for the same tier really. All the group might do better than expected. So someone's going to fail badly. Tier - B

(12) Czechia (Sedlacek/Gawlas) - After being the team that went for the longest without getting a win of any description, they've finally got it together, and at the start of the year were looking like a very dangerous wildcard, with Karel being in the majors races, and Adam regaining his card and starting out 2026 pretty well. Gawlas has regressed a bit and Sedlacek has faded a little bit, but being up in the seedings, maybe he can turn things around with a good steady run of Euro Tour wins. Group is alright, and if Adam can turn up, then the chances of them sneaking to back to back quarters is definitely live. Tier - B

India (Kumar/Goenka) - Nitin plays again, and on the Asian Tour is in the mid 70's. Goenka makes a debut, and is in the low 70's. It's a tough group and hard to see them getting anything out of things. They did pick up a pair of legs in both matches last year, against Czechia in one of them no less, so are showing at least a pulse, but I think given the group the projection would be finish third and not look completely terrible. They may not get that far. Tier - D

Denmark (Jorgensen/Graversen) - We have no card holders here, so we look to the SDC tour, and we get Jorgensen back after a couple of years away, and Graversen making his first start for Denmark. Graversen scrapes into the top 10 of the SDC averages, while Jorgensen is a fair bit lower down than that. That's a fair bit of a concern, the numbers are not particularly great, and while I think they're a stronger team than India, the distance is not that much and almost makes me think that I should bump India up a tier. They lost badly to Malaysia in a winner goes to knockouts game last year, and something silly could easily happen again. Tier - D

(13) Austria (Suljovic/Rodriguez) - This is a complete mix of form. Suljovic is looking as good as he has done pretty much since he was last in the top 32, having a very nice renaissance, while Rusty looks pretty cooked, not performing well at all, was one of the worst card holders last year and is no better this time. The fortunate thing is that the group is manageable, and Mensur in current form should counteract Rusty in current form enough that they get out of it, but would need a godlike draw to do better than that. Tier - C

China (Zhan/Zong) - Always tough to know what to expect from these. Zong is the strongest player by miles, and didn't really look out of place at the worlds, while Zhan has played a little bit of Asian Tour, and may not be the worst player here but doesn't appear to offer a great deal at this level. It's not the worst group, they're not getting out of it, but that French team isn't all that so maybe, just maybe, they can do something of note here. But probably not. Tier - C

France (Tricole/Thuillier) - France had a nice run three years ago, but this is a different team now, Thibault staying in as the card holder, but it's Thuillier who will partner him, having got a pretty steady series of cashes on the Challenge Tour, much more than Labre has been able to manage. He's had some flashes, and appears easily better than Zhan (heck, he might be better than Rodriguez), but I'm not sure that there's a huge difference between Zong and Tricole, who if anything doesn't score heavily enough and might be a bit overrated, seasonal numbers of under 87 really aren't retain card levels, although he's doing enough to get in the worlds so he might do it anyway. They should beat China and they should lose to Austria, but this is a weird enough group that either of those could be reversed. So I kind of have to stick them in the middle. Tier - C

(14) Latvia (Razma/Melderis) - Just like their neighbours Lithuania, this is a side that has one card holder who's pretty solid (Razma seems a good couple of steps above Labanauskas), and then one guy making up the numbers, although Melderis (and Zhukov as well) are doing more, and Valters has played his way onto the Euro Tour at least. Much like Austria, this one more or less writes itself, the draw is favourable, but I can't think of any knockout draw that would be favourable, so seems to be a case of the low seed doing what the low seed should. Tier - C

Italy (Turetta/Castelli) - A couple of years ago, Italy made the dream run to the quarter finals with Turetta and dalla Rosa, this year Michele is back, now back at Challenge Tour level where he's doing alright in the top 30 after a two year card run which was relatively uneventful. He's joined by Castelli, who's not doing too badly himself, picking up a few decent scalps and scoring alright, having wins over and more prize money there than Brian Raman and Joe Murnan for example. This isn't a great team, but it isn't a bad team, it should be easily good enough to finish second, and if Madars isn't on form, there's enough here that they have an outside chance of repeating 2024's heroics. Tier - B

Trinidad and Tobago (Balfour/Walklin) - Another debuting team, having made a surprise run through Argentina and the Bahamas in their regional qualifier. We've seen that Salate and Sweeting are no mugs, so this is a bit of an upset. 10-1 in the final sounds convincing, but only three of those legs were in as few as 18 darts, with more than half going past seven visits. Which, even in one of the better groups they could have got, simply isn't going to cut it at this level. Tier - F

(15) Croatia (Krcmar/Ljubic) - Weird team this. Krcmar isn't the card holder, but has more prize money on the order of merit than Ljubic, who's in the second year of his. Pero's down at 76 for scoring this year with a dreadful legs won-lost record, with Boris being by far the superior player and very much a threat. However, this is a nightmare of a group for them to have landed in, and if Boris isn't on peak form it's perfectly reasonable to think that they could finish bottom of the group. Krcmar probably isn't the best player in the group and I don't think Pero is better than anyone. Boris is good enough that they're not going to stink the group out, but no team is longer than 2-1 to win the group in the betting, that's how even this is. Tier - D

Japan (Sakai/Muramatsu) - Japan's team is forever interchangeable, but it's a bit of an odd one with Sakai being here for the first time, topping the Asian Tour order of merit as things stand, and Muramatsu making a first return since 2019 having been in the side for the first nine events. He's fourth in the rankings there, and both are in the top five for the averages, so it's very much a coin flip between these and the Philippines as to who's the strongest Asian team. It's hard to gauge expectations - I think I have to go with something positive simply because the seed is so weak, but the other non-seed is an absolute bastard as well. Anything could happen. Tier - B

Spain (Reyes/Justicia) - And completing the Operation Mindfuck that is anyone trying to work out who'll win this group is Spain. Cristo is back having made the worlds and then having won his card, and he looks like he's not missed a beat at all, looking arguably better than he did when he was in and around the top 32 discussion, while Justicia, a multi-time card holder himself with a win on the worlds stage, is doing steady work on the Challenge Tour with a final this season already. A good card holder with a competent partner is a combination that can do damage in this, and that's exactly what Spain have. What happens here, I don't know, I've got a 1-1-1 leg difference tiebreak cluster in my mind, and a non seed getting a win is par for the course. These are good enough that they could just win both games outright, and, with a bit of luck, get a favourable draw and make some progress in the knockouts. Tier - A

(16) Finland (Haavisto/Masalin) - Seems like both of these have qualified for a Euro Tour this year. Which is probably good enough to get seeded, a little odd as 22 countries have a card holder and Finland isn't one of them, but I guess they do some sort of two people on the OOM beats one person on the OOM thing. Haavisto is third on the SDC rankings, Masalin is down at barely a Nordic Championship qualifying spot, but is in the top ten in the averages at least. Hard to call this one, they might squeak through the group, but they could very easily lose to Norway, and Hungary are getting better all the time. Maybe they qualify, but there's a lot of permutations where they don't. Tier - D

Norway (Dekker/Sivertsen) - And we get a Scandi (no wait not Scandi) derby in this one, and this team seems a bit more polarised. Dekker has the card and tops the Nordic rankings, as well as being right on the fringes of making the worlds through the Pro Tour again, while Sivertsen is a bit less well known, down in the seventies for averages, but this is a returning team having gone 1-1-1 with South Africa and Poland last year. I think the gap between Dekker and whoever is smaller than that between Sivertsen and whoever, and we could get a tiebreak again. It wouldn't take much for Norway to do enough to qualify, but they could easily collapse as well. Tier - C

Hungary (Kovacs/Szekely) - Our final team sees the Hungarians look to finally get something going, and they've got a couple of players who've been here before, but not in this exact team. Kovacs was at the worlds having won the Hungarian super league but was fairly easily beaten by Callan Rydz, while Szekely is a good but not great veteran, with players like Peter Kelemen and Andras Borbely who are coming through perhaps quite not being ready for this level of play. They'll be a steady team, probably not with the upside needed to get out of the group, but against this level of group, where they'd probably be projected to finish third, a win does not seem completely unreasonable. As such, got to give them a decent ranking. Tier - B

So there you have it.

S - England

A - Poland, Spain

B - Australia, Canada, Czechia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mongolia, Philippines, Wales, USA

C - Austria, China, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden

D - Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland

F - Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda