The past few years have seen the standard on the Players Championship massively improve and as a result more cutthroat and despite there not being any darts for a while due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the statistics show this is the case.
Compiled by TheRedBit180, it shows that in terms of 100+ averages on the Players Championship series; it was 195 in 2018, in 2019 it was 220 while in 2020 this has gone up sharply to 279 which is usually the best barometer of standard.
Then in terms of 180's it has had an even sharper increase from 4009 back in 2018 to 2019 when it was 4016; this is contrasted to the 2020 figure which is 4190.
This has also seen an effect on nine-dart finishes also with there being one every weekend barring this last one for quite a while and despite the small break like alluded to the standard will just keep increasing it seems.
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https://twitter.com/TheRedBit180/status/1239261043630714887