10/06/2024

Poland Darts Masters 2024 participant field: Michael van Gerwen and Luke Littler return to World Series this weekend

The Poland Darts Masters 2024 is scheduled for Friday, June 14 and Saturday, June 15. Last year this World Series tournament was played in Warsaw, but this year the event will be played in Gliwice.

As with every World Series tournament, the field of competitors consists of eight PDC top players and eight players from the region where the tournament is played. Michael van Gerwen and Luke Littler are back at it this weekend, after not competing in the Nordic Darts Masters last week. Van Gerwen and Littler will be joined at the Poland Darts Masters by six men who were also in Copenhagen last week. Nathan Aspinall, Stephen Bunting, Rob Cross, Luke Humphries, Michael Smith and Peter Wright make another appearance. The winner of the Nordic Darts Masters is missing in Poland. Gerwyn Price had been unavailable for this World Series tournament for several months. Bunting was designated as his replacement at the time.

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The Eastern European representation is largely familiar names. The best known, of course, is Krzysztof Ratajski, winner of 10 ranking tournaments at the PDC. Ratajski is one of five Eastern European Tour Card holders on the PDC circuit.

The other four also received invitations to participate in the Poland Darts Masters. These are Radek Szaganski, Boris Krcmar, Adam Gawlas and Karel Sedlacek. Szaganski also surprisingly managed to win a Players Championship tournament last year. The last three Eastern European qualifiers went to winners of qualifying tournaments. Gyorgy Jehirszki, Sebastian Bialecki and Jacek Krupka managed to secure these three starting spots. Bialecki is the best known of this trio. The Pole made it to the quarterfinals at the 2022 UK Open and won four tournaments on the PDC Development Tour.

The first edition of the Poland Darts Masters in 2023 was convincingly won by Michael van Gerwen. At the time, 'Mighty Mike' played one of his best tournaments ever. After winning 6-3 over Adam Gawlas in the first round, he recorded an average of 110.79 per turn in his quarterfinal win against Luke Humphries (6-2). In the semifinals, Van Gerwen recorded a 7-3 victory over Michael Smith with an average of 104.02. In the final, Dimitri van den Bergh was beaten 8-3. Van Gerwen threw an average of 113.22 in this final.