From Luke Littler to Gian van Veen to Wessel Nijman: The five best first-round matches at 2026 World Matchplay

The World Matchplay 2026 is around the corner. From July 18 to 26, the iconic Winter Gardens in Blackpool will once again host one of the most prestigious darts tournaments of the year. Only the World Darts Championship carries more ranking weight, which is why many affectionately call the World Matchplay the “summer Worlds.”

As every year, the opening round promises instant fireworks, although it was honestly not an easy task this time to pick five absolute headline ties. That mainly has to do with the composition of the field. The ProTour qualifiers are paired with a player from the world’s top sixteen, and among those who qualified via the Pro Tour there are quite a few less eye-catching names, meaning not every first-round match promises fireworks on paper.

Some established names are also missing. Peter Wright, Michael Smith, and Dimitri Van den Bergh failed to qualify for Blackpool. Their presence would automatically have produced several bigger matchups. Players like Justin Hood, Cristo Reyes, Beau Greaves, and Kim Huybrechts could also have added extra color to the field in terms of profile and entertainment value.

Even so, the draw still offers plenty of ingredients for mouthwatering ties. Several seeded players face opponents in excellent form, while a few Dutchmen are immediately subjected to a serious test. Plenty of reasons to look forward to the opening days in Blackpool. According to DartsNews.com, these are the five best first-round matchups at the World Matchplay 2026.

Who can stop Luke Littler from claiming another World Matchplay title? Perhaps that chance lies in the very first round. The defending champion starts his title defense against debutant Niko Springer. On paper, Littler is the overwhelming favorite, but the opening round is also when the margins are smallest. The format is still best of 19 legs, so one poor spell can be punished immediately.

That changes little about the young Englishman’s striking numbers. Littler has not lost a single match at a ranking major all calendar year. His last defeat at a televised ranking event dates back to the European Championship in 2025, when James Wade beat him. Littler also started fast in Blackpool last year. Ryan Searle was brushed aside 10-2, with “The Nuke” averaging 108.92.

Springer, meanwhile, makes his World Matchplay debut. The German largely owes his qualification to his surprise triumph at the Hungarian Darts Trophy in September 2025. His season subsequently lacked consistency, although he has shown an uptick in recent weeks with a semi-final and a quarter-final on the floor.

An advantage for the German may be that Springer hardly bears any scars against Littler. The pair have met only once, at Players Championship 5 early in 2025. Littler escaped then with a narrow 6-5 win.

Springer has also shown several times that he has the level to hurt the absolute elite. On the Euro Tour he has thrown multiple ton-plus averages, and at majors he has already claimed fine wins over Michael van Gerwen and Gary Anderson. That is precisely why this opener might be more dangerous for Littler than it appears on paper.

One of the seeded players who must seriously fear an early exit is Chris Dobey. Dirk van Duijvenbode seems to be rediscovering his best form at exactly the right time. The Dutchman recently reached the quarter-finals at the European Darts Open in Leverkusen and has been excellent on the floor as well with two quarter-finals and a final in recent weeks.

Van Duijvenbode generally feels right at home in Blackpool. Of his four previous appearances, he survived the first round three times. His best run came in 2022, when he reached the quarter-finals.

Dobey actually started the season excellently. The Englishman won two Players Championship events and reached a semi-final and a quarter-final early in the Euro Tour season. In recent months, however, his form has been less convincing. Over his last five Euro Tours, Dobey managed to win just one match, and his floor results are clearly down on earlier this spring.

For Dobey, this will already be his seventh World Matchplay appearance. Strikingly, he lost his first three outings straight away in the opening round, while in the last three editions he did clear the first hurdle each time.

The head-to-head numbers also make this clash particularly intriguing. Dobey and Van Duijvenbode meet for the nineteenth time, and the record is perfectly balanced at 9-9. On top of that, Van Duijvenbode has won the last three encounters, including just this past weekend at the European Darts Open. All the ingredients are there for perhaps the most unpredictable match of the first round.

For Kevin Doets, this match feels like the reward for an excellent season. The Dutchman makes his World Matchplay debut and arrives in Blackpool brimming with confidence. In 2026 alone, Doets reached a quarter-final, semi-final, and final on the Euro Tour. In addition, at the Players Championship events he made at least the quarter-finals no fewer than ten times. The absolute highlight was his title at Players Championship 13.

Doets also regularly posts excellent averages and has proved several times in recent years that he is not afraid of the big names. He is now firmly inside the world’s top 32, and a good result in Blackpool could propel him another significant step upwards. However, he faces an opponent who is also having a superb season. Ross Smith has already won a Euro Tour and two Players Championship events this year and has been established in the world’s top sixteen for quite some time.

It is noticeable, though, that Smith has only sporadically been able to translate his strong floor form to the big TV tournaments. That is precisely where there is still plenty to gain for “Smudger.” If he can become more consistent at the majors, there is still a lot of upside in his world ranking. This will be Smith’s fifth appearance in Blackpool. Three times he went out in the first round, but in 2024 he impressively reached the quarter-finals. He has to defend that result this week.

The head-to-head stats also boost Doets’s confidence. Of their seven previous meetings, the Dutchman won four. The most recent came at Players Championship 17 in May of this year, when Doets convincingly prevailed 6-2. There is an important caveat, though: all previous meetings were on the floor. The two have never faced each other on a big TV stage.

Gian van Veen faces a brutal opening match right away. The world number three was drawn against Krzysztof Ratajski, who only last weekend won the European Darts Open in impressive fashion. At that same tournament, the Pole beat Van Veen 6-3 in the third round, bringing the head-to-head to a perfect 2-2. In majors, Ratajski even holds a slight edge, as he also won their meeting at the 2025 Players Championship Finals.

Van Veen begins his third World Matchplay. On his debut in 2024 he lost immediately, but last year he impressively reached the quarter-finals. Still, the Dutchman has not been in his best spell in recent months. After a fantastic 2025, in which he captured the European title followed by a sensational World Championship final, he also started the Premier League Darts strongly. In March he was struck by kidney stones, and since then “GVV The Giant” has never quite been the same. The first round often proved a stumbling block in recent months, and deep tournament runs were scarce. Yet the first signs of recovery seem visible. In recent weeks, Van Veen has once again posted multiple averages over 100 and earlier this month also reached the semi-finals of Players Championship 24.

While Van Veen is slowly climbing again, Ratajski seems fully back at the top. The Pole not only won the European Darts Open, but also reached two Euro Tour semi-finals earlier this season. In addition, he made the quarterfinals at both the World Darts Championship and the UK Open.

That is a huge contrast to the past two seasons, when Ratajski struggled with his form. During the last World Darts Championship, the Pole explained that this dip was the result of two brain surgeries due to an aneurysm. Those health issues are now a thing of the past and that is translating again in 2026 into excellent results.

Perhaps the biggest question hanging over this World Matchplay is: what can Wessel Nijman finally produce on a major stage? On the Pro Tour in 2026, the Dutchman is simply the best player on the circuit. With six Players Championship titles and two Euro Tour victories, he stands out.

His averages tell their own story. Nijman has already posted three ton-plus averages above 110 this season and threw countless other matches over 100. The quality is beyond doubt. The question now is whether he can replicate that level on television. So far, Nijman has never reached the last eight at a major. It should be noted, though, that he has not played a single TV tournament since winning his two Euro Tour titles. That extra confidence may have given him the final push.

Nijman also has fond memories of Blackpool. On debut last year, he shocked former champion Nathan Aspinall by knocking him out straight away. James Wade then proved far too strong in the second round with a comfortable win. Expectations are naturally much higher this year.

His opponent Dave Chisnall only just squeezed into the tournament. For a long time the Englishman looked set to miss out, but a Euro Tour quarterfinal and a Pro Tour semifinal at the penultimate qualifier earned him a place in the field after all.

For Chisnall, this will be his sixteenth consecutive appearance at the World Matchplay. Between 2013 and 2018 he reached the quarterfinals no fewer than five times, but has failed to hit those heights since. In fact, at his last three appearances, ‘Chizzy’ was knocked out in the opening round each time. His season has been erratic as well. He still pops up in the occasional quarterfinal, but there have been strikingly many early exits too.

Finally, the head-to-head also favors Nijman. The Dutchman has won all three previous meetings with Chisnall, though all of them came on the floor. The Englishman has therefore never beaten Nijman. That makes this match especially intriguing, because if Nijman can finally bring his impressive Pro Tour form to a big TV stage, Blackpool could well be the tournament where he truly breaks into the absolute world elite.