Schedule PDC World Darts Championship 2025 Saturday evening with Littler and Van Barneveld as star attractions

We have finally reached the second round of the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship. Saturday night we have four delightful matches on the schedule at Alexandra Palace in London.

In England, eyes will mainly be on teenage sensation Luke Littler, who gets to play his first game of this edition. The winners of this session will return after Christmas for the remainder of the tournament.

A tough opening match against Ryan Joyce immediately awaits Danny Noppert. It is the seventh time that 'The Freeze' has competed at Alexandra Palace, but Noppert does not have a very good record in London. In his six previous appearances, Noppert did not make it to the last sixteen once, which is actually a strange statistic for a player who has been in the top-16 of the world rankings for years. The dart player from Joure had a pretty decent year on the Pro Tour again this season. He reached at least the quarterfinals five times on the Euro Tour, and even ten times on the floor tournaments. Noppert also won one of these floor tournaments.

With Joyce he meets a more than formidable opponent, who has already proven in the past that he is not afraid to win from the big names. Unlike Noppert, Joyce did get far once at the World Darts Championship, reaching the quarterfinals at the 2019 edition. 'Relentless' already has one match behind him at this tournament. The Englishman won 3-1 in sets over Darius Labanauskas in his opening match. In the head-to-head, Joyce is in a remarkably good position against the Dutchman. Four of the five previous encounters were won by Joyce.

Many people are already thinking about a possible clash between Luke Humphries and Raymond van Barneveld in the third round of the World Darts Championship, but the 57-year-old from The Hague will first have to win from Nick Kenny. On paper, Van Barneveld is widely the favorite, but the five-time world champion hardly managed to achieve any good results on television after reaching the last sixteen at the last World Championship. At the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and the European Darts Championship he was eliminated in the first round, just like last year. On the floor, Van Barneveld performed a lot better, even managing to win a Players Championship tournament.

With Kenny as his opponent, he will meet someone who is motivated to the bone to win against the Dutch darts legend. The Welshman won 3-0 in sets against Stowe Buntz in the first round and said in his post-match interview that he thought it was more like nothing that people are already working on the clash between Humphries and Van Barneveld, while Peter Wright even hinted at a meeting between himself and Van Barneveld in the fourth round. In the first round Kenny had an average of 87.66. That will have to be slightly better to stand a chance against 'Barney'.

The English tabloids were hoping for a clash between Luke Littler and Fallon Sherrock in the second round, but it fell just short. Ryan Meikle managed to put a stop to that by beating Sherrock 3-2 in sets. 'The Barber' faces the leaden task of putting a leg up on Littler at Alexandra Palace. If he plays like he did against Sherrock (83 average), it will undoubtedly be a sweep in Littler's favor.

A year after his sensational final place in London, Littler is suddenly the bookies' top favorite to take the world title. The 17-year-old Englishman showed that his final spot was no fluke and proved to be the most successful player on the PDC Tour in 2024. The British phenom won no fewer than 10 PDC adult titles this season, including the Premier League Darts and the Grand Slam of Darts. The question seems to be not if but when Littler will become world champion.

The last match of the evening is a very interesting one, in which perhaps another player from the top-10 of the seedings list will fall. Connor Scutt was one of the best players in the first round. Thanks to an average of 102, he left Ben Robb defenseless 3-0 in sets. Recently, Scutt also presented himself well at the Players Championship Finals, where he reached the quarter-finals.

Damon Heta has been considered one of the best players on the Pro Tour for years, but on the televised tournaments it has not really worked out for the Australian. Although Heta managed to reach the semifinals at the UK Open, he was eliminated immediately at the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and the European Darts Championship. 'The Heat' will have to work to prevent the same thing from happening to him at Alexandra Palace.

Sky Sports are broadcasting the entire World Darts Championship in the UK with coverage throughout on a dedicated channel Sky Sports Darts.

A subscription is required to access this though which can be sought on a Sky box or through their streaming platform.

The 96 participants at the 2025 World Darts Championship may divide as much as 2.5 million pounds between them. That amount is almost forty times higher than at the very first edition of the PDC Worlds back in 1994.

The 64 participants to start in the first round of the World Darts Championship will receive £7500 in prize money anyway. The top-32 of the placement list are guaranteed 15,000 pounds. These players enter the World Darts Championship from the second round. The amount then increases further each round. The new world champion will receive the top prize of 500,000 pounds.

First round: Best of 5 sets

Second round: Best of 5 sets

Third round: Best of 7 sets

Fourth round: Best of 7 sets

Quarterfinals: Best of 9 sets

Semifinals: Best of 11 sets

Final: Best of 13 sets

Danny Noppert v Ryan Joyce (R2)

Raymond van Barneveld v Nick Kenny (R2)

Luke Littler v Ryan Meikle (R2)

Damon Heta v Connor Scutt (R2)