Schedule Thursday evening at Winmau World Masters 2025 including Humphries-Cullen, Wright, Bunting and Price
PDC
The main tournament of the Winmau World Masters gets underway tonight in Milton Keynes. After the preliminaries took place yesterday, the first eight matches of the first round are on the schedule tonight.
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In the opening match of the evening, Jermaine Wattimena, already in excellent form in recent months with a final at the European Championship and a third round at the World Darts Championship will take on Josh Rock. The 23-year-old Northern Irishman starts this tournament as the 16th seed and is slight favorite, but Wattimena will certainly believe in his chances.
Next up is Damon Heta and Ross Smith. Heta, the number eight in the world, might have hoped for a selection for the Premier League Darts, but missed out. He is mainly blamed for failing too often at TV tournaments. Can he change that at the Winmau World Masters? Then he must pass Smith in the first round, who had a disappointing World Championship and is currently in 21st place in the world rankings.
Next, Rob Cross, a losing finalist at the 2023 Masters, takes on William O'Connor. Cross had a disappointing World Darts Championship, where he immediately went down in his opening match against Scott Williams. It also went wrong at the first tournament of the new season, the Bahrain Darts Masters. But last weekend, Cross managed to get back to winning ways when he won the Dutch Darts Masters by defeating Stephen Bunting in the final. O'Connor has been running in the PDC for years, but remains stuck between positions 30 and 60, so it is expected that Cross should be able to win this fairly easily.
After Cross, another former world champion will be in action with Gerwyn Price. 'The Iceman' started the new season excellently with a final place at the Bahrain Darts Masters. Last weekend, he went down 7-3 against Cross in the semifinals of the Dutch Darts Masters. Price will take on qualifier Florian Hempel in his opening match. The German is often known to perform well in TV tournaments, just think of his performance at the World Darts Championship. Can he do the same at the Winmau World Masters and give Price such a hard time?
Gerwyn Price back in action.
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The next former PDC world champion in action is Peter Wright. 'Snakebite' had an extremely lousy 2024 until he made it to the quarterfinals at the World Darts Championship to everyone's surprise, where Bunting eventually proved too strong. Wright will take on Kevin Doets. The Swedish Dutchman caused a shock at the last World Darts Championship by beating Michael Smith and is clearly in good shape, which he showed on Wednesday in the qualifying tournament. Doets will be itching for another stunt, but Wright will certainly be on his guard.
Perhaps the main match on opening night is the one between Luke Humphries and Joe Cullen. Former world champion Humphries failed to extend his title at the last World Darts Championship, but continues to lead the world rankings by a wide margin. Cullen has not had the best year of his career, to say the least, but showed signs of improvement at the last World Darts Championship. If both men reach their best level this will potentially be a cracker.
The penultimate match of the evening is between Stephen Bunting and William Borland. Bunting is the man of the season beginning with a title at the Bahrain Darts Masters and a final place at the Dutch Darts Masters. The crowd favorite was also selected for the Premier League Darts. Bunting indicated recently that he feels unbeatable at times. Qualifier Borland therefore faces a hell of a task to make things difficult for "The Bullet.
Closing the first evening in Milton Keynes is Danny Noppert taking on Michael Smith. Noppert is still the second highest ranked Dutchman in the world after Van Gerwen, but was quickly eliminated at the last World Darts Championship. Just like Michael Smith, who lost to Doets. Both men will be looking for revenge after a disappointing end to 2024.
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World number one Luke Humphries aiming to give his year a kickstart at the Winmau World Masters
TV Guide
The tournament will be shown on PDCTV to start on the preliminaries from 12pm local time in Milton Keynes but as the tournament fully starts on Thursday, it is set to see ITV4 take on the mantle.
They will show the rest of the tournament with action starting at 7pm for the first two days. But on the weekend, it is 12:45pm and 7pm starts for the remaining sessions as a champion will be crowned.
Read also
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Prize money breakdown
| Result | Price money |
| Winner | £100,000 |
| Losing finalist | £50,000 |
| Semifinalists | £30,000 |
| Quarterfinalists | £17,500 |
| Losers second round | £10,000 |
| First-round losers | £5,000 |
| Losers last 16 in preliminary round | £2,500 |
| Losers last 32 in preliminary round | £1,000 |
| Losers last 64 in preliminary round | £750 |
| Total | £500,000 |
Format
As tradition dictates, the Winmau World Masters is played in a set format where each set is over best of 3 legs. As the tournament progresses, more sets must be won to advance.
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Preliminary Round: Best of 3 sets
First round: Best of 5 sets
Second round: Best of 7 sets
Quarterfinals: Best of 7 sets
Semifinals: Best of 9 sets
Final: Best of 11 sets
Schedule 2025 Winmau World Masters
Thursday January 30 (1900 GMT)
First Round x8
Josh Rock v Jermaine Wattimena
Damon Heta v Ross Smith
Rob Cross v William O’Connor
Gerwyn Price v Florian Hempel
Peter Wright v Kevin Doets
Luke Humphries v Joe Cullen
Stephen Bunting v William Borland
Danny Noppert v Michael Smith
Jermaine Wattimena, Cameron Menzies and Kevin Doets were amongst the eight players to come through the 2025 Winmau World Masters Preliminary Rounds in Milton Keynes on Wednesday.
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) January 29, 2025
Round-up & Results from Wednesday's action in Milton Keynes! 📝
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Based in Leicester, Samuel has extensive experience in darts media and has been closely involved in coverage of the professional darts circuit for several years. Within the UK darts community, he is a recognised figure known for his consistent editorial output and ongoing reporting on major tournaments and developments across the PDC calendar.
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