By Aiden Boyer
This year’s World Darts Championship has one clear favourite, that being Luke Littler. But there are many players who will be sniffing around to take the trophy home if the World No. 1 slips up, and there is one man in particular who could go under the radar and have a deep run.
That man is Jermaine Wattimena. The 37-year-old has found some strong form over the past two years, after a tough period of his decade-long PDC career.
It was in 2018 when Wattimena reached the last 32 of the World Championship for the first time, in what was a breakthrough tournament for the Dutchmen, and since then he has reached that same stage on four occasions, including last year before bowing out to two-time World Champion Peter Wright.
However Wattimena suffered a slump in form in the early 2020s before returning to form in 2024, where he reached the European Championship final, being defeated by Ritchie Edhouse, and reaching the Grand Slam quarter-finals. Since then he has continued this level of performance and this year has won two titles, both of those being Players Championship events.
As for this year’s World Championship draw, ‘The Machine Gun’ will start his potential run against the German Dominik Grullich, and while Grullich can be impressive on his day, this should be a comfortable win for Wattimena.
Following this, he would most likely play Scott Williams, who has had deep runs at Alexandra Palace before, but has suffered from suspected dartitis recently, and this may hamper his chances against the Dutchman.
If he got through round two, which he would be expected to, he would then face his first tough test, going up against former multiple-time World Champion Gary Anderson. Now this may seem like a step too far for Wattimena, but Anderson is not the player he once was, and with lingering back issues plaguing the Scotsman, a best of seven sets contest may not be viable for Anderson and his form, meaning Wattimena could have a good chance of progressing.
Then comes round four, also known as the last 16, where Wattimena would most likely face Michael van Gerwen. Any other year, you would expect ‘Mighty Mike’ to brush aside Wattimena with relative ease, but 2025 has not been MVG’s year. Despite picking up a World Series of Darts Finals trophy, van Gerwen has struggled to be consistent and has exited multiple big tournaments earlier than expected. This would be the perfect chance for a player like Wattimena, who hasn’t beaten van Gerwen since 2018, to get one over on the darting icon and book his place in the quarter-finals.
A final eight spot for Wattimena would be enough to potentially call him the shock of the tournament as it is, but who knows, maybe he could go even further.
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