Humphries or Littler? Littler or Humphries? It became clear once again at the dress rehearsal on Sunday who would be the two big favorites going into the 2025 Darts World Cup, which begins on December 15th. As expected, Luke Humphries and Luke Littler played their way into the final of the Players Championship Finals in Minehead at the weekend. Humphries ended up with the upper hand 11:7 and then praised his 17-year-old opponent: “He is simply an exceptional talent, probably the best player in the world at the moment; definitely in terms of statistics. But I can beat him, just like he can beat me.”
However, there will be no direct final revenge and thus a new edition of the 2024 World Cup final on January 3rd in London’s Alexandra Palace. World champion Humphries is number one at the Darts World Cup, Littler is number four. The two would then meet in the semi-finals. So at least one half of the tableau is open to others. Whichever top player secures the title and the £500,000 prize money that comes with it – he will need six wins and will be focusing on the first hurdle anyway. The tournament table will be determined after the draw made on Monday.
Humphries, who traditionally opens the tournament as defending champion at the end of the first evening on December 15th, will face the winner of the match between Thibaut Tricole (France) and the Australian Joe Comito in his start in the second round. Littler meets the winner of the English gender duel Ryan Meikle – Fallon Sherrock. As in previous years, the top 32 are seeded for the second round of the Darts World Cup.
These include two Germans, Gabriel Clemens and Martin Schindler. While Schindler, who is ranked 23rd, will face the winner of the duel between Callan Rydz (England) and Romeo Grbavac from Croatia after the most successful year of his career, Clemens, number 27 in the world rankings, will face the Dutchman Niels Zonneveld or Robert Owen ( Wales).
Clemens in particular is challenged; the Saarlander is threatened with leaving the top 32 after the World Cup as his participation in the semi-finals in 2023 will be excluded from the world rankings. In the event of an opening win, Dave Chisnall from England would probably be waiting in round three, Schindler’s possible opponent there would be the Belgian Dimitri van den Bergh.
Four more Germans got involved in the first round of the World Cup. Last year, the participation of a German quintet set a record. Now there are even one more.
Ricardo Pietreczko will determine Gian van Veen’s second-round opponent in a duel with China’s Xiaochen Zong. Florian Hempel meets Jeffrey De Zwaan in round one, and Northern Irishman Daryl Gurney would be a test for the Cologne native in round two. Super League champion Kai Gotthardt celebrates his World Cup debut against Scot Alan Soutar. A real top player, Stephen Bunting, would be waiting in round two.
Niko Springer also had an extremely difficult draw. On his debut he will meet the extroverted Englishman Scott Williams, the 2024 World Cup semi-finalist. In the Top64 round, the “Meenzer Bub” would face Rob Cross, number five in the world.
Whitlock not at the World Cup
And a seventh German almost jumped on the World Cup bandwagon on Monday. Paul Krohne, who narrowly missed his first World Cup participation in the Super League final against Gotthardt, also played his way to the final in the last World Cup qualifying tournament, but had to give way to a very strong Jeffrey De Zwaan.
Krohne had a difficult draw in the field of non-qualified tour card holders, but was able to prevail against the Northern Irishman Nathan Rafferty (6:3) and also Simon Whitlock (6:5).
The Australian darts legend, a 21-time World Cup participant and in the round of 16 five years ago, is missing from the season highlight, as are Jose de Sousa and record participant Steve Beaton. The 60-year-old lost his opening match and will not be able to give a farewell performance on stage after 33 participations in a row (ten times at the BDO, 23 times at the PDC). Like last year, Mervyn King also missed qualification. He lost to Matt Campbell in the final 6:7 and will now lose his tour card at the end of the year.
Paul Krohne unlucky
Krohne had to go into the decider again in his semi-final against the Englishman Graham Usher, but once again remained strong nerves and checked his first match dart in 17 darts.
In the decisive game against De Zwaan, the Münster player quickly led 2-0, managed another break to make it 3-2, before the Dutchman checked 118 points to make it 3-3 and then gained a 5-3 lead thanks to strong scoring.
Krohne continued to hold out, broke to 4:5 in 11 darts, but then had to accept the 4:6 – also in eleven darts – and conceded a 129 finish in the eleventh leg, with De Zwaan (average: 98.04). Ticket to Alexandra Palace was purchased. Krohne had waited with 120 points remaining.
So there was only little consolation that the German’s 91.99 points meant the second highest average of the four finals. Rhys Griffin, Matt Campbell and Dylan Slevin, who secured the other three World Cup tickets, all stayed under 90 points in their victories.
For the other Germans, the dream of the year’s highlight was quickly shattered. Pascal Rupprecht lost at the start 5:6 against Joshua Richardson. Daniel Klose had match darts in his first round match against the Dutchman Owen Roelofs, but was also eliminated 5:6.
Lukas Wenig started the qualification with a 6:5 against the Englishman Brett Claydon, but lost a 5:1 lead in the next match against the Italian Michele Turetta and lost 5:6.
They will now keep their fingers crossed for the six German participants from December 15th. The exact schedule of the first and second World Cup rounds will be announced by the PDC on Wednesday.
If Lutz Wöckener isn’t just anyone Sport in self-experimentation tried it out, he writes about darts and sports politics, but sometimes also something off-kilter like football.
