Pairs shake-up could create ‘really good narrative’ - Paul Nicholson backs plans for future pairs events in the PDC after World Cup of Darts success

The World Cup of Darts has, once again, been a roaring success with darts fans worldwide. The PDC’s only pairs competition, where players compete for their country, was won in sensational fashion by the Northern Irish duo of Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney last night, and the overall sensation caused by this year’s tournament has led to plenty of speculation about whether more pairs tournaments should be added to the PDC calendar.

This is a notion backed by Paul Nicholson, the former Players Championship Finals champion and a World Cup finalist. ‘The Asset’, in conversation with Sporting Life, was presented with two potential options: A ‘Blind Pairs’ tournament where the top 32 players in the world are randomly drawn with each other, and a ‘Pick Your Pair’ option where the top seeded players pick from a pool of lower ranked prospects. The 46-year old seemed to respond in kind to both:

"I think there’s mileage in both, but from a player’s perspective, they’d want to choose. That’s a show in itself. You have a half an hour show right, ‘number one seed, who’s going to be your pick for the pairs championship?’ But it would be interesting from the perspective if it was blind pairs who certain people would get."

The ‘Geordie-Aussie’ then spoke about some potential drawbacks of the blind pairs option: "There are possibilities here where someone might play with someone that they don’t necessarily get along with, so I don’t think certain promoters would want to get on with that. They’d want to give the person the choice to get rid of that possible controversy. So me, personally, I think the second idea of choosing your partner and maybe making it anybody outside of the top 16."

Nicholson was finally asked about how the dynamic of a partnership works in pairs events, having had significant experience from representing Australia five times at the World Cup, and whether fallouts were commonplace: "I never did during playing. Simon [Whitlock] and I once had a disagreement before a World Cup, but there are people who maybe do have a bit of friction at the end of a defeat. That’s natural, everybody wants to win, but it would create a really good narrative for the journalists and for the promoters involved. I think it’s a great idea."

Overall, there appears to be a strong backing from one of the great pairs players in PDC darts, which, alongside support from other prominent players and supporters, could lead the PDC to bite the bullet and introduce a second pairs tournament to the calendar sooner rather than later.