With less then one week to go, the world’s best players are fine tuning their game as they prepare their bids to become the next Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) World Champion.
Amongst them will be 10 players from Team Winmau, including 3 former World Champions – Steve Beaton, Mark Webster and Christian Kist – who will be looking to win the richest prize in the sport.
Team Winmau players, William O’Connor and 1996
BDO World Champion, Steve Beaton, have the honour of opening the tournament when they play each other on Thursday December 14
th. A little later in the day, Christian Kist, has the opportunity to turn the tournament on its head when he plays the favourite and current PDC World Champion, Michael van Gerwen.
Team Winmau then has a day off before Mervyn King plays Zoran Lerchbacher on Saturday December 16
th in the afternoon session, and Brendan Dolan takes on Alan Ljubic in the preliminary round in the same session. If Brendan is successful he will play Robert Thornton at the end of the afternoon in the first round proper.
Canadian legend Jeff Smith also plays on the 16
th with a preliminary round match against Luke Humphries. The winner of this encounter will face two-time PDC world champion Gary Anderson later the same day.
Sunday is another rest day for Team Winmau before a triple header on Monday December 18
th. World number 4 Daryl Gurney, fresh from his victory in the World Grand Prix, takes on Belgian Ronny Huybrechts, and another Winmau former World Champion, Mark Webster, takes on the winner of a preliminary match between Kai Fan Leung and Paul Lim. Kevin ‘The Artist’ Painter, himself a former PDC World Championship finalist, faces in-form Austrian, Mensur Suljovic.
Closing out round one for Team Winmau is Simon Whitlock who toes the oche with Martin Schindler on Wednesday 20
th December.
Join the Fantasy World Darts Championship and win a 1st prize of 403 euro with a prize pool of at least 3,000 Euro! Team Winmau First Round Schedule