By Stan Drummond on 180 UK Debut
The World Grand Prix of Darts 2025 begins on Monday 6th October, as world number one Luke Humphries hopes to kick start a repeat of his 2023 title success. However, Luke Littler is the odds-on favourite to win the tournament, but with the unique double start format, the competition has proved to be difficult for even the best players to get a grip of.
Last year’s outside winner, Mike De Deker, proved that anything can happen – so here are five bold predictions going into the competition.
Luke Littler for another early exit
The World grand-prix is one of the few major trophies which Luke The Nuke Littler has yet been able to get his hands on. The 18-year-old recently expressed that he didn’t like the double start last year, which contributed to his defeat to Rob Cross in round one.
This year he faces in-form talent, Gian Van Veen in is opening tie on Tuesday evening. Van Veen is a giant hurdle for Littler to overcome, as the 6ft 4’ Dutchman goes into the competition as the player with the highest percentage on doubles (47.38%), compared to Littler’s (40.48%) Credit: PDC. This will be particularly useful as the tournament format requires players to start and finish on a double. The winner of the fixture will go onto face either 2024 champion Mike De Decker, or Peter Wright, which will be no easy task.
The 4th nine-darter to be thrown
Believe it or not, there has only ever been three nine dart finishes thrown at the World Grand Prix, and zero since 2014. James Wade played Robert Thornton in a historic second round tie where both players were able to checkout 501 with only three visits to the oche. Eleven years on, a nine-darter is well overdue at the world grand prix of darts, and as 2024 saw the most nine-darters thrown in a calendar year the quality of darts has never been higher. Luke Littler, Josh Rock, or Michael Van Gerwen would be my three guesses for who could pull off most difficult nine-darter.
A non-seeded player to make the final
The world’s top ranked 16 players face the top 16 players from the world pro tour but double success and form will be everything this year as the pro tour players could be huge challengers for the title. Van Veen (currently ranked 15th in the world at the time of writing), has the hardest test in round one.
But, if he can get past The Nuke (which is a big if), then there’s no reason to believe that he can’t go all the way, as the second most in-form player across the last 200 legs. Nick Springer (ranked 65th) has just come off the back of a European Tour title, beating the likes of Luke Humphries, Josh Rock and Danny Noppert in various stages of the Hungarian Darts Trophy.
If he can produce similar form against Stephen Bunting in his opening game, he too has the capability to make it to the final. De Deker was ranked 36th in the world before his World Grand Prix success which proves that the world rankings is just a number.
Struggling ex-world champions
Former world champions Raymond Van Barneveld, Gary Anderson, Rob Cross and Peter Wright could all have a difficult week keeping up with the two Lukes and the pro tour players hoping to climb up the world rankings. Anderson plays Van Barneveld in the opening round so, straight away one of those two will be sent home.
Peter Wright has struggled to find form and has fallen out of the top 16 since the cut-off date whilst Rob Cross looks to be evenly pitched against Wessel Nijman who has been in red hot form across the Players Championship events. I’ve left out Michael Van Gerwen and James Wade. MVG because I feel like he’ll have a point to prove following his sixth World Series win last month and similarly with Wade and his recent form reaching the final eight in his last four competitions but I don’t think either of them can go all the way.
As a disclaimer: I really hope I’m wrong here as I am a huge fan of all of these players. However, with doubles being the key, it gives a good opportunity for some upsets.
At least one player forgetting about the format
With the Grand Prix’s opening with a double format, easy mistakes can be made when players look to gain maximum points with an opening dart, rather than aiming for the outer ring. After all, darts is a game of muscle memory which was made clear last year as Ricardo Pietreczko opened his second set with a very accurate dart hitting treble 20.
To the amusement of the Leicester crowd, both Pietreczko and Raymond Van Barneveld saw the funny side of the German’s mistake. Barney himself has also been prone to making the same mistake in the past back in 2011, before Brendon Dolan hit the competition’s first nine-darter in the same match. Mistakes by darts players always provide great entertainment, let’s hope for some more this year!