Michael van Gerwen leads, Luke Humphries struggles – What ten years of Grand Slam data reveal ahead of 2026

The 2026 Grand Slam of Darts starts on Saturday, 14 November, with an expanded field of 48 players split into 16 groups of three, with one seed per group. This change has now seen only the group winner advancing, meaning clinical group performances count more than ever this year.

With ten editions of the group stage since 2016, this article looks at every top-16 player in this year’s field with at least three appearances and ranks them by how often they have won their group, with group exits separating any level. So who has handled the Grand Slam groups best?

2024 World Champion and 2023 Grand Slam Champion Humphries’ inclusion on this list is far from a surprise, being arguably the best player of the 2020s. With six appearances in this competition, Humphries has actually seen three group exits, most recently in 2024, losing out to eventual semi-finalists Mickey Mansell and James Wade.

Winning 12 group games out of the 18 he’s played, Humphries has won 78 legs in this stage of the tournament and boasts a 97.14 average, not dissimilar to his yearly average across the 2020s. The 2023 champion won all three group games, averaging above 100 in all three matches, beating Rob Cross 16-8 in the final for a blueprint Grand Slam campaign.

And runner-up in 2025, Humphries has been dominant in knockout matches, winning 9 from 11 matches, averaging 108.55 against Van Der Velde, 104.98 against Michael Smith, and 106.25 against Price, before losing to Littler 16-11 in 2025. Although this is great form in knockouts, his group average is almost four points lower than his knockout average, explaining his low position on this list despite two finals.

A hat trick of group stage exits in six appearances is a poor return for a 97 average, losing 2 games in 2020. 5-4 to Chisnall and 5-2 to Cross, whilst averaging 102.57, shows that he hasn’t lacked the ability to win but has been unlucky in specific areas.

A last-leg decider on debut, and losing handsomely to Cross despite a world-class display, set the tone of the Grand Slam format, punishing specific moments. In 2026, this will cost him, as even one loss could spell danger, but one loss was enough in 2021 to kick him out of the competition, losing on legs to Suljovic and De Sousa by one leg.

Another unlucky exit, 2024 could be argued to be a deserved exit, losing a thriller to Rowby John Rodriguez 5-3 to put the nail in his coffin following a 5-3 loss to group-topping Wade. In 2024, he went out as the sport’s leading player, and in 2021, he won two games, which would have been enough in any other year he’s played. While it seems Humphries at times treated the group stage as a warm-up, and he’ll be caught out this year if he does the same, he also has had times like 2024 when his son was unwell so he had other things to focus on. He learnt in 2025; will he learn again?

Clayton treats the group stage opposite to Humphries, using the group stage to demonstrate his best performances. In the first four Grand Slam appearances, Clayton won three of his groups, finishing runner-up in 2020 behind Gerwyn Price before losing 10-3 in the last 16 against Dimitri van den Bergh, spelling out the majority of his Grand Slam history: great in the group stage, poor in the knockouts.

On debut in 2018, he won all three games, including a dramatic 5-4 win over Van Gerwen, averaging 103.60 against the Dutchman in a close affair, then losing to MVG in the quarter-finals, proving his dominance in group-stage formats.

2021 presents his dominance best, winning all three games and averaging above 99, including a 103.43 average to cruise past this stage. In this period of 2018-2022, only Van Gerwen and Price had a better group stage record than Clayton; it was the same period in which Michael Van Gerwen became a three-time World Champion and Price won three Grand Slam titles. He is elite in this format but recently hasn’t had the same success.

Missing the 2024 Grand Slam, the ferret has exited the Grand Slam twice in 2023 and 2025 in the group stage without producing the same performances as his first four appearances. In 2023, Clayton dropped his poorest performance, most significantly losing to youngster at the time Josh Rock 5-1, averaging 82.59 in a particularly disappointing display. He was outclassed by the Northern Irishman, failing to use his experience against the relatively inexperienced Rock.

A 5-3 loss to Dobey meant he finished third in the group, winning one game against Berry Van Peer, where he averaged, again, a sub-par 90.59. Contemporary thoughts for Clayton would be to brush this aside, but he seemed to continue this form going into 2025. Losing 5-1 to Cam Crabtree in an impressive debut win for the Londoner personified Clayton’s return; not performing at his usual lelvel. Smashed by a player on his debut, he showed the same problems of not using his strong group stage experience and later losing to the underdog of the tournament, Lukas Wenig, 5-3 in the group.

It was damage limitation by the time he played Noppert, finally producing an impressive display, beating Danny Noppert 5-4 despited the Dutchman’s 107 average. 2026 could go two ways: Clayton continues to perform at his 91.68 average in the last two years, or he starts to perform similarly to his pre-2023 standings. Facing an injured Rob Cross and a relatively unknown Anton Ostlund, who has produced the goods on the Modus Super Series stage, he needs to find that pre-2023 form to break his knockout-stage curse.

Averages don’t always translate directly into the appropriate results, and Josh Rock’s Grand Slam group stage record shows this. Four appearances, two group wins and one exit is a pretty solid return for the Northern Irishman, winning 8 matches in this. In his debut year, he finished second to Luke Humphries, winning twice before losing 10-8 in a Grand Slam classic, averaging 103.93 and producing an iconic nine-darter where Rocky injured himself in celebration.

Winning 59.1% of his legs in the group stage format, Rock has mostly ridden his luck at times. If Rock rode his luck in results in his campaign, 2023 saw him ride his luck in terms of averages. Averaging 91.98, 91.71 and 84.24 in a clean sweep 3-match winning campaign whilst dropping just 4 legs in these games is a statistical anomaly when put against other performances. If Rock can win without scoring heavily, why did he lose in 2024 despite high averages?

Finishing third in 2024, the 25-year-old was put in the group of death: Stephen Bunting, Gian Van Veen and Wessel Nijman. Finishing third despite averaging 105.83 and 99.64, Rock lost 5-2 to a rampant Van Veen, who averaged 110.39, and 5-2 to Bunting, who averaged 106.66. Beating Nijman, this wasn’t enough to qualify for the next round, where, it could be argued, in any other group that year, Rock’s performances would have put him top of the group.

He’s a danger in short-format matches, as his quick pace, powerful scoring and composure on doubles make him a dangerous opponent that he has used so well over his four appearances, from not producing his best in 2023 to winning the group last year despite losing to Nijman; he’s been good enough in every instance except the anomaly of 2024. 2026 could face a similar story to 2024, though, as a group of an in-form and hungry-for-TV recognition Kevin Doets with Players Championship 34 winner Tommy Morris, who will match Rock’s pace and scoring, proves to be one of the most exciting groups 2026 offers. Could Rock get away with 2023’s poor averages, or will he need to produce his best in the group stage?

If Humphries is the player the groups catch out, Gerwyn Price is the one they rarely trouble. Winning seven of his nine groups since 2016, The Iceman has gone out at this stage only once, finishing third on 1-2 in 2017, a year before the first of his three Grand Slam titles. Since then, every one of those titles, in 2018, 2019 and 2021, has started with first place in his group, and a group record of 20-7, with 125 legs won from 206 played for a 60.7% return, shows a player who treats the opening weekend as a job to be done rather than a hurdle to survive.

At his best, that job has been done emphatically. Topping his group on legs of 15-2 in 2023, Price averaged 110.51 in a 5-0 whitewash of Ryan Searle and 112.30 against Gian van Veen, a group stage as dominant as any in the decade, before Gary Anderson beat him 10-6 in the last 16. Averaging 98.66 across his recorded group matches, second only to Van Gerwen in this pool, the Welshman has always had the level, but his record raises a different question: when Price does lose, how close has it been?

The answer is as close as darts gets. All four of Price’s group defeats since 2018 have ended 5-4, and in two of them he scored well enough to beat almost anyone in the field, averaging 104.58 in losing to Simon Whitlock in 2018 and 105.99 against Raymond van Barneveld in 2022. Whitlock’s 108.86 left him relying on leg difference to top the group, and he got it, his 14-11 edging the Australian’s 11-11, while the Van Barneveld defeat left him second, a finish he turned into a quarter-final under the old format.

Martin Schindler beat him 5-4 in 2021 with a 101.66 average, and Ricky Evans did the same last year, a result Price corrected with a 16-9 win over Evans in the quarter-finals. Nobody has beaten Price comfortably in a Grand Slam group since 2018, but four deciding legs is a thin margin for a player whose two matches this year leave far less room for error. Seeded fourth in Group E alongside Sebastian Bialecki and Joe Hunt, he opens against Hunt on Saturday evening. If Price is the most dependable player in the field, who sits above him?

Only one player has a better record, and the gap is clear. Winning eight of his ten groups, Michael van Gerwen has the best group-stage numbers of anyone in this year’s field by every measure: a 25-5 record, 145 legs won against 69 lost for a 67.8% return, and a 100.70 average, the only one of the ten above three figures.

From 2016 to 2022, the Dutchman lost just two group matches from 21, topping his group every year except 2018, when Jonny Clayton’s 5-4 win left him second despite averaging 107.92. That defeat stands out because it took a career-best Grand Slam display from Clayton to beat him, and even then Van Gerwen made the semi-finals from second place.

At his peak, Mighty Mike made the group stage look like a formality, averaging 115.19 against Joe Cullen in 2021, 112.66 against Gary Robson in 2018 and 111.38 against Ross Smith in 2019, and his titles in 2016 and 2017 completed a hat-trick that began in 2015. A decade of group-stage dominance puts him top of this list, but is the Van Gerwen of the last two years the same player?

The numbers say not quite. In 2024, Van Gerwen went out in the groups for the only time in these ten years, finishing third on 1-2 despite a positive leg difference of 13-10, beaten 5-4 by Gary Anderson, who averaged 105.19, and 5-4 by Ryan Joyce in a match separated by 0.02 of an average, 93.43 to 93.45.

Twelve months later, he topped his group on 2-1 but only after losing 5-4 to Niko Springer despite outscoring the German 94.37 to 86.02, before Danny Noppert beat him 10-6 in the last 16. That leaves him 6-3 in group matches since 2023, compared with 19-2 across the previous seven years, and without a Grand Slam semi-final since 2019.

All three of those recent defeats came in deciding legs, the same margin Price has lived with, but in a three-player group with only two matches, there is far less room to lose one and recover. Seeded tenth, Van Gerwen faces Jeffrey de Graaf and Henry Coates in Group L, opening against Coates on Saturday evening. Ten years of history make him the best group-stage player in this field, and this weekend will show whether the last two are the exception or the new normal.

Outside the top five, the records thin out quickly. Chris Dobey has gone out in the groups only once in four appearances but has won just one group, a 3-0 sweep on legs of 15-3 last year, and he faces Martin Schindler and Jan Schmidt in Group N.

Stephen Bunting won his group in 2017 and 2018 but endured the cruellest exit of the decade last year, losing all three matches 5-4, while Nathan Aspinall’s two group wins have come alongside three exits in six appearances. Ryan Searle has progressed only once in four attempts, winning 38 legs and losing 55. Then there is Ross Smith.

The newly crowned European Champion has never won a Grand Slam group, losing all three matches in 2019 and finishing second in both 2022 and 2024, and he opens Group O against Rusty-Jake Rodriguez, with Gabriel Clemens to come. Under the old format, second place twice counted as progress. This year, it would send Smudger home.