Preview Friday night at Players Championship Finals: Van Veen-Humphries, Littler, Price among highlights

Friday night we continue the first round of the Players Championship Finals 2025 in Minehead. The evening session will see the big favorites for the overall victory in action.

The tournament will be played by the top 64 players on the Players Championship Order of Merit. The draw is based on their final ranking on this ranking list.

Due to the high number of participants, games will be played on two different stages at the Players Championship Finals during the first two days of the tournament. The matches on the main stage will be televised, while the matches on the second stage will be shown via a live stream on PDC TV.

We immediately begin on the main stage with an interesting match between Martin Schindler and Michael Smith. Last week we finally saw Smith return to a major tournament at the Grand Slam of Darts. There, "Bullyboy" did not do unkindly, as Smith made it to the quarterfinals in Wolverhampton. Schindler was eliminated at the last sixteen. After Schindler, we get to see another German player in the second match of the evening. Then it's Gabriel Clemens' turn, who we haven't seen on a major for a long time. He will cross swords with Josh Rock, who has never made it past the last 32 at this tournament. With his current status as world number one, that should change this year.

And also in the third match of the evening a German darter will appear on stage. It will be the return of Max Hopp, who has previously been active at this tournament in 2018 and 2019 and managed to reach the second round each time. To match that performance will be a difficult task, as he will meet Gerwyn Price. 'The Iceman' was the best player of the Players Championship season thanks to four titles. The Welshman, meanwhile, is due for another good result at the Players Championship Finals. The last time Price got past the last sixteen was in 2020. Stephen Bunting makes his appearance in the fourth match. He meets Ritchie Edhouse, the surprise winner of the 2024 European Darts Championship. This season Edhouse was significantly less successful, and was not even allowed to try to defend his European Championship title.

It was a very successful Pro Tour season for Jeffrey de Graaf, who managed to reach a Players Championship final back in March. The Swedish Dutchman lost that one, but in August he did take the title at Players Championship 24. In the end, De Graaf finished 29th in the final rankings. It earned him a meeting with the number 36, and unfortunately for De Graaf, that became reigning world champion Luke Littler. 'The Nuke' will hunt in Minehead for one of the few remaining missing major titles on his record.

Gian van Veen also had no luck with his final ranking. 'GVV The Giant' finished seventh on the Players Championship Order of Merit, and was thus paired with the number 58. And that became Luke Humphries, who skipped a lot of Players Championship tournaments in 2025. At the World Matchplay the two also met in the first round, and then it was Van Veen who managed to win handsomely. In October they faced each other again, this time in the final of the European Darts Championship. Then too Van Veen won, thereby capturing his first major title. The seventh match scheduled on the main stage is between Nathan Aspinall and Karel Sedlacek. Although Aspinall managed to win the 2019 UK Open in Minehead, 'The Asp' has a pretty poor record in Minehead when it comes to the Players Championship Finals. In six participations, he managed to win only four matches.

On Stage Two, the session opens up with a tie between Wesley Plaisier and Jermaine Wattimena. For Wattimena, 2025 became the most successful year of his career, with no fewer than two Players Championship titles. He finished sixth on the Players Championship Order of Merit and moved up to 20th place in the regular world rankings. His compatriot Plaisier had a solid first season of his Tour Card era, qualifying for both the Players Championship Finals and the World Darts Championship. The duel between Wattimena and Plaisier is not the only Dutch showdown on the second stage. In the second match Ryan Searle and Darren Beveridge face each other, but after that it is the turn of Wessel Nijman and Richard Veenstra. For Nijman, the stakes are still high during this tournament. He is virtually 31st in the rankings for the World Darts Championship, and that possibly means an early encounter with Luke Humphries. With a good result in Minehead, Nijman can move up a few spots on the seeding list for the tournament in Ally Pally.

The next match on this stage is also a fun one, as it is between Raymond van Barneveld and Krzysztof Ratajski. A win would be nice for 'Barney', to head towards the World Darts Championship with a little more confidence after all. On the ranking majors, the five-time world champion did not win a single match in 2025. Ratajski did not have a good start to the season, but has been on a better roll in recent months. He won another Players Championship tournament, reached a semifinal on the Euro Tour and reached the second round of the World Grand Prix. However, it was not yet enough to return to the top-32 of the PDC Order of Merit.

Dirk van Duijvenbode will Madars Razma in the first round. Van Duijvenbode has definitely started the way up again this year, after two difficult years due to injury. However, it is waiting for Van Duijvenbode to get really far again at the majors. On the floor, 'Aubergenius' did quite well, finishing in eighteenth place on the Players Championship Order of Merit.

A few years ago, the match between Peter Wright and Joe Cullen would certainly have been on the main stage, but having slipped to 30th and 32nd in the world rankings respectively, they now belong on the second stage. For both players, this tournament is a chance to add some color to a disappointing season. Later in the evening, we still have Damon Heta against Justin Hood, while Chris Dobey opens his tournament against Keane Barry. The duel between Dobey and Barry may yet be moved to the main stage if the matches there go smoothly.