From February 28 to March 2, the UK Open descends on Butlin's Minehead Resort for one of the most unpredictable and exciting tournaments of the year. This unique event brings together 160 players ranging from established PDC Tour Card holders to talents from the Challenge Tour, Development Tour and winners of some amateur qualifying tournaments.
Because of its format, the tournament is also known as the FA Cup of Darts. Defending champion Dimitri Van den Bergh, world champion Luke Littler, three-time UK Open winner Michael van Gerwen and world number one Luke Humphries start their hunt for the title in the fourth round. Former champions Nathan Aspinall, Peter Wright, Danny Noppert, James Wade, Gary Anderson and Andrew Gilding also step in then.
Former PDC player and analyst Matthew Edgar discussed his players to watch out for in the Darts Show Podcast. According to him, these are the names that could make a big impact at the tournament.
Follow all the results at the 2025 UK Open in our live score!
"Challenge Tour, Development Tour, Women's Series - she's top of all those three orders of merit with £17,000 worth of income so far. If you add in the WDF stuff, then she's the second most money earned by any darts player in 2025 so far and she's playing so well. We've seen her play on the ProTour now. She had a great game against Josh Rock but she's got her hands full against Stefan Bellmont. He's a quality player and it will be No 2 vs No 2 on the Challenger Tour. Bellmont was a recent semi-finalist on the ProTour," said Edgar.
"Beau is going to be one of those who will be feared and supported well by the crowd. She has the capabilities of actually winning the tournament."
Ryan Searle is known for his unparalleled talent and laid-back attitude, but Edgar says there has been a noticeable change.
"He always plays well at the start of the year. I've never spoken to Ryan in all the years that I've know him and be interested in darts as much as he is now. He's now speaking quite a lot in interviews about how he doesn't really put effort in, and he's right, he doesn't!
"We've shared hotel rooms together and I'd be up at 9 o'clock, we've got a board up in the room, I'd be practising and he'll be playing Mario Kart. We'd get to 11 o'clock and I'd be saying 'we need to get downstairs because it's starting in an hour' and he'll still be playing Mario Kart. Then he'd roll out of bed, have a wash, get ready, go down and hit 100 averages. It's like bare minimum, but high output. So what's he going to be like when he starts putting effort in?
"He's actually spending time in the practice room, so I'm really interested to see where this goes for Ryan. I'd love to see him pick up a title."
Josh Rock
Josh Rock was one of the biggest rising stars of recent years, but Edgar saw a worrisome technical flaw creep into his game.
"I'm really interested in Josh at the minute. He burst on the scene and then last year I noticed a real technical flaw started to creep in. When he drew the darts back, he froze. He was messing with the dart in hand, the fingers rolling on the dart, and I was starting to think he was developing dartitis.
"Then I watched him at the start of this year and it's gone, it's fluent, it's free, it looks nice, and I wouldn't be surprised if Josh Rock goes back to what we saw a couple of years ago. I think he's going to have a great season."
Connor Scutt
Scutt may not immediately be at the top of the favorites list, but according to Edgar, that could just change. "When we're talking about quality needed, flexibility, and the ability to play for a long period of time, I have never seen anyone so dedicated to practice and also the quality at which he plays with. I've never seen someone hit so many 180s in my life, and I've been around players like Michael van Gerwen, Phil Taylor, Luke Humphries, Ryan Searle - big 180 hitters. It was unbelievable. I think he could be a real dark horse in this one."
Dom Taylor
Finally, Edgar points to Dom Taylor as a possible sensation. "I was covering the ProTour last week and I didn't cover any of his games until he got to the semi-finals. He was averaging 103 for the day - for the day! I think he can do that on the big stage. I'm interested to see how he gets on because he is going to be feared."
— Sky Sports Darts (@SkySportsDarts) February 26, 2025
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- I agree. There needs to be a points system and preferably just a rolling one year. World Championship should earn the most points though it can be argued that the current qualification system does see a fair few players qualify from regional country qualifiers who would struggle to hold down a place on the Pro Tour. If prize money won is going to remain as the determining factor for ranking then the World Championship should just consist of the 128 Tour Card Holders. Another option would be to take the World Championship out of the rankings and have it as the stand alone pinnacle that you qualify for by winning certain tournaments or your ranking position, sort of like a GSOD+.Mysstree05-04-2025
- The Premier league has literally become a pantomime with a hero and villain, all thats needed is an older dart player in drag to play the joke old woman / queen and a younger woman to play the male hero. Barry is probably working on it now.Mysstree04-04-2025
- Ridiculous the booing for both these players in the final in Germany tonightListerAnderson03-04-2025
- May only have won two PDC Majors but thats two more than most players will ever win. He wasn’t lucky either to beat Taylor and MVG, he outplayed them.Mysstree29-03-2025
- Bunting is having a nightmare.Mysstree28-03-2025
- The next prodigy (prodigies) are just round the corner. Wonder if it gets to the stage of 180 after 180 being hit leg after leg whether there will be a modification to the equipment such as reduced doubles and trebles, reduce the size of the board or length of the oche?Mysstree25-03-2025
- obviously littler has the potential to surpass everybody simply because nobody has been this good at this age before, but people who think he would be any kind of favourite right now against prime taylor in a big final have short memories. it's obvious that prime taylor wouldn't win as many world titles if he was playing today, but there's also good reason to believe he'd be winning more than anybody else. hell, his statistical profile still stands alone in darts history and he might statistically be even better if he was playing today with better equipment, larger beds, more competition therefore more motivation, etc.colt24-03-2025
- Bad idea. Every other Major ranking title prize funds added together do not come to £1 million. Add £500k to the prize pot and spread it out evenly over the draw.Mysstree24-03-2025
- Jake Paul is an arrogant American attention seeker. It would be nice to see - Usyk knock the arrogance out of him... but take his time in doing so.MrYnyslas197123-03-2025
- The Premier League is a glorified promotional tool for piss heads to attend and shout abuse at dart players so averages are not the way to pick the best line up. Throw Peter Manley, Eric Bristow and Jocky Wilson into the mix for some real fireworks.Mysstree22-03-2025