New Zealand’s sole representative in the PDC World Championships this year, Ben Robb, will face a very familiar foe should he win his first match in this years tournament. The DPNZ number one’s first match will be against another player ranked high in the WDF rankings but playing in the PDC Worlds instead in Connor Scutt. The Englishman lost out by a leg in the quarter finals of the PDC Players Championships recently, losing in a last leg decider to the revitalised Dirk van Duijvenbode. Robb is then drawn to match up against Damon Heta in a battle of the mates. It is a tough part of the draw for both players, with van Duijvenbode joined by Luke Woodhouse, Mike De Decker and Stephen Bunting. Both Lukes, Littler and Humphries are also in this half of the draw.
Australian Joe Comito has drawn Frenchman Thibault Tricole in the opening round of the World Championship of Darts at the Alexandra Palace. Tricole enjoyed French success at the Worlds last year. He was the first Frenchman to qualify for the tournament and secured the first French win of the tournament in 2023. If Comito gets past the Frenchman he will face defending champion Luke Humphries. The West Australian would be looking to add Humphries name to a list that includes Denis Priestley (lost in the opening round robin stage) and John Part (twice) as defending champions who fell at the first hurdle the following year.
Simon Whitlock did not qualify for the first time since 2008/09 and thus the only other player from Australia or New Zealand in the draw is his great mate and Oceanic Masters winner Gordon Mathers. The Queenslander is in the bottom half of the draw and he will open his campaign with a match against ‘Rapid’ Ricky Evans who has had inconsistent results in this event over the years. Mathers, if successful, would then face the revitalised Dave Chisnall in the following round. This past of the draw has a very European flavour to it with Gabriel Clemens (Germany), Dimitri van den Bergh (Belgium), Neils Zonneveld (The Netherlands), and Martin Schindler (Germany) all in that section. Deeper into the event on of two former world champions in Michael van Gerwen or Gary Anderson could be lurking about in that quarter of the overall draw.
In other sections of the draw Rob Cross and Luke Littler are the big names in the second section of the draw whilst Michael Smith and Gerwyn Price should be pretty satisfied with the field in their part of the draw, although both have to overcome some form issues of late if they are to double their tally of world championships and improve their overall world rankings at the same time.
The representation of four players from Australia / New Zealand is the lowest since 2016/17 when Whitlock was joined by Warren Parry, David Platt and Corey Cadby (quite a quartet!) but with the increase in players able to qualify for PDC events in future years (the top eight players from the DPNZ are invited to play in the Winmau World Masters preliminary qualifying event in the UK on January 29 2025) there is a good foundation to build on for local Kiwi players. Add to this the rumours of expansion to 128 players for the PDC World Championships for 2025/26, plus the return of the PDC World Series to Wollongong and Auckland in August and there is all to play for at DPNZ events in 2025.
2024 / 2025 Draw starting 15th December 2025 (broadcast in Australia on Fox Sports and in New Zealand on Sky Sports)
(1) Luke Humphries (England) v Joe Comito /Thibault Tricole
(32) Raymond van Barneveld (Netherlands) v Nick Kenny/Stowe Buntz
(16) James Wade (England) v Jermaine Wattimena/Stefan Bellmont
(17) Peter Wright (Scotland) v Wesley Plaisier/Ryusei Azemoto
(8) Stephen Bunting (England) v Alan Soutar/Kai Gotthardt
(25) Dirk van Duijvenbode (Netherlands) v Madars Razma/Christian Kist
(9) Damon Heta (Australia) v Ben Robb/Connor Scutt
(24) Mike de Decker (Belgium) v Luke Woodhouse/Lourence Ilagan
(4) Luke Littler (England) v Ryan Meikle/Fallon Sherrock
(29) Ritchie Edhouse (England) v Ian White/Sandro Eric Sosing
(13) Danny Noppert (Netherlands) v Ryan Joyce/Darius Labanauskas
(20) Ryan Searle (England) v Mensur Suljovic/Matt Campbell
(5) Rob Cross (England) v Scott Williams/Niko Springer
(28) Gian van Veen (Netherlands) v Ricardo Pietreczko/Xiaochen Zong
(12) Nathan Aspinall (England) v Cameron Menzies/Leonard Gates
(21) Andrew Gilding (England) v Martin Lukeman/Nitin Kumar
(2) Michael Smith (England) v Kevin Doets/Noa-Lynn van Leuven
(31) Krzysztof Ratajski (Poland) v Richard Veenstra/Alexis Toylo
(15) Chris Dobey (England) v Stephen Burton/Alexander Merkx
(18) Josh Rock (Northern Ireland) v Karel Sedlacek/Rhys Griffin
(7) Jonny Clayton (Wales) v Mickey Mansell/Tomoya Goto
(26) Daryl Gurney (Northern Ireland) v Florian Hempel/Jeffrey de Zwaan
(10) Gerwyn Price (Wales) v Kim Huybrechts/Keane Barry
(23) Joe Cullen (England) v Wessel Nijman/Cameron Carolissen
(3) Michael van Gerwen (Netherlands) v James Hurrell/Jim Long
(30) Brendan Dolan (Northern Ireland) v Chris Landman/Lok Yin Lee
(14) Gary Anderson (Scotland) v Jeffrey de Graaf/Rashad Sweeting
(19) Ross Smith (England) v Jim Williams/Paolo Nebrida
(6) Dave Chisnall (England) v Gordon Mathers /Ricky Evans
(27) Gabriel Clemens (Germany) v Niels Zonneveld/Robert Owen
(11) Dimitri van den Bergh (Belgium) v William O’Connor/Dylan Slevin
(22) Martin Schindler (Germany) v Callan Rydz/Romeo Grbavac
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