Find out who is first reserve for World Darts Championship 2025

The field of participants for the 2024 World Darts Championship is complete and now the draw for the most important event of the year has also been made. The total field consists of 96 players. In this article we explain what happens when a player is unable to participate in the World Darts Championship.

After all, someone can always fall ill, or perhaps an international qualifier fails to get a visa to come to the UK. Or someone might be dropped for violating match-fixing or doping rules. Indeed, on Nov. 22, it was announced that Dom Taylor had delivered a positive doping test. Subsequently, Robert Owen was called up as a reserve for the World Darts Championship.

The PDC has established rules on how the reserve list is formed after the draw for the World Darts Championship has been made. If a player withdraws from the World Championship after the draw for the event has taken place, the replacement player will come from a reserve list from the Tour Card qualifying tournament. The losers of the final round ranked according to their position in the world rankings on the day of the qualifying tournament.

Mervyn King (number 61 on PDC Order of Merit) was the highest ranked player who lost his final match at the qualifying tournament. As such, the English darts veteran is the first reserve for the World Darts Championship.

Determining the second reserve spot was a bit more complicated. Martijn Dragt and Adam Hunt tied for 120th place with both at 13,500 pounds. Then the countback rule comes into effect. It looks at who has won the most prize money at the last four PDC tournaments.

That turned out to be Hunt, making Hunt now the second reserve. Dragt has to hope that three players cannot participate in the World Darts Championship. Paul Krohne is the fourth reserve for the tournament in at the iconic Alexandra Palace.

1. Mervyn King

2. Adam Hunt

3. Martijn Dragt

4. Paul Krohne