What form will the PDC's top players take to the World Darts Championship?

On December 15, the 2024 World Darts Championship will kick off at the Alexandra Palace in London. Christopher Kempf, the statistician of the PDC, has analysed the form of the top players going into the event. He based his analysis on the last 200 legs played of each player.

Among other things, Kempf analysed players' averages over the past period. Leading that list is Luke Humphries with an average of 101.87. The second and third spots are occupied by Gerwyn Price (98.87) and Michael van Gerwen (98.63), respectively. Defending champion Michael Smith is only in 14th place with an average of 95.66 over his last 200 legs. One spot behind Smith is Peter Wright, the 2022 world champion, who will have to defend £500,000 on the world ranking at the Alexandra Palace.

Humphries, along with young Dutch talent Gian van Veen, also tops the list of players with the most maximum scores. Humphries managed to throw 80 maximum scores in his past 200 legs. Damon Heta had the most 99/101+ finishes in his last 200 legs out of all PDC players.

In addition to his excellent average, Humphries also has a clinical finishing percentage of 43.41%. Stephen Bunting and Ryan Searle were even more lethal in finishing on the doubles recently with finishing percentages of 45.5% and 45.7%, respectively. Ryan Joyce, however, finished at the very top of the list of highest finishing percentages over the last 200 legs, while Michael van Gerwen finished only 24th out of all PDC players.

Michael van Gerwen showed good form at the Players Championship Finals, however, where he broke the tournament record with an average of 118.52 in a match against Ross Smith. Van Gerwen then managed to reach the final, where he threw his tenth 9-darter on TV. He still lost the final to Luke Humphries though ,whom he could meet again in the semifinals of the World Darts Championship.

Humphries, who won 3 of the past 4 major tournaments, thus seems to be the man in form and could win his first world title at this edition of the World Darts Championship.