Qualifying race for 2023 World Grand Prix with one tournament to go

With one ranking tournament to go, the World Grand Prix field of participants is almost complete. At the past Euro Tour tournament, a number of players managed to solidify their position in the qualifying race, whereas others saw their chances pass them by.

The World Grand Prix will take place from Oct. 2 to 8 at the Morningside Arena in Leicester. The field of participants consists of the top-16 of the world rankings and the top-16 of the cleaned Pro Tour Order of Merit. At the start of the German Darts Open, the top-16 in the world rankings were already certain of qualifying for the World Grand Prix. Ross Smith could still take over the 16th spot from James Wade, but in that case Wade would qualify through the Pro Tour. Smith is currently among the Pro Tour qualifiers.

On the Pro Tour ranking, the sixteenth position is currently held by Ricardo Pietreczko. The German lost in the second round of the German Darts Open, but managed to maintain his position on the Pro Tour ranking, as Gian van Veen and Luke Woodhouse also failed to get past the second round. Simon Whitlock lost in the first round and is thus permanently out of the qualifying race.

The last tournament that counts in the qualifying race for the World Grand Prix is the Hungarian Darts Trophy. This tournament will be played from September 22 to 24 in Budapest. Ricardo Pietreczko, Gian van Veen and Luke Woodhouse have all qualified for this tournament and it looks like it will be between them who takes the last spot for the World Grand Prix.

1 Michael Smith 1265

2 Michael van Gerwen 1096

3 Peter Wright 1010.25

4 Gerwyn Price 733

5 Nathan Aspinall 664

6 Luke Humphries 634.25

7 Jonny Clayton 607.5

8 Rob Cross 589.5

9 Danny Noppert 511

10 Dirk van Duijvenbode 448.5

11 Joe Cullen 424

12 Damon Heta 403.25

13 Dave Chisnall 397.75

14 Dimitri Van den Bergh 397

15 Ryan Searle 382

16 James Wade 354.25

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17 Ross Smith 340.5

PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit.

1 Josh Rock 136.25

2 Krzysztof Ratajski 85

3 Martin Schindler 71

4 Stephen Bunting 70

5 Ross Smith 68

6 Andrew Gilding 63.75

7 Gary Anderson 57.5

8 Jose de Sousa 57

9 Daryl Gurney 55.75

10 Gabriel Clemens 52.75

11 Mike De Decker 51.5

12 Brendan Dolan 48.5

13 Raymond van Barneveld 46.25

14 Chris Dobey 46

15 Callan Rydz 45.5

16 Ricardo Pietreczko 43

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17 Gian van Veen 41.5

19 Luke Woodhouse 39.5

23 William O'Connor 32.5

25 Madars Razma 32

28 Keane Barry 31.5

29 Jermaine Wattimena 31

31 Richard Veenstra 28.75

47 Scott Williams 20.5

49 Rowby-John Rodriguez 20.25

60 Andy Boulton 17

63 Scott Waites 15.75