World Matchplay Darts 2025: Blackpool dates, draw, format, favourites and prize cash for match at Winter Gardens

The 2025 Matchplay is simply across the nook so right here is all the things that you must know in regards to the males’s and ladies’s tournaments, reside on Sky Sports activities…

Humphries lifted the Phil Taylor Trophy for the primary time 12 months in the past and can start his defence in opposition to Gian van Veen, the World Youth Champion, on Saturday.

Teenage famous person and reigning World Champion Littler will step as much as the oche on Sunday to tackle Ryan Searle, a 2023 Matchplay quarter-finalist.

Dutch icons will go head-to-head when Michael van Gerwen and Raymond van Barneveld meet in Blackpool on Monday.

Van Gerwen – the runner-up to Humphries final yr – is bidding for a fourth World Matchplay title in opposition to five-time World Champion Van Barneveld, the runner-up at this occasion again in 2010.

Former runner-up Jonny Clayton begins his marketing campaign in opposition to German No 1 Martin Schindler.

Fourth seed Stephen Bunting will play Ryan Joyce in a repeat of their first spherical showdown 12 months in the past, with 2023 champion Nathan Aspinall drawn in opposition to Dutch debutant Wessel Nijman.

Rob Cross and Peter Wright – the winners in 2019 and 2021 respectively – additionally face Dutch opposition in Dirk van Duijvenbode and Jermaine Wattimena, whereas 2018 champion Gary Anderson performs Luke Woodhouse for a spot within the final 16.

2007 champion James Wade – additionally a five-time runner-up – will make his twentieth consecutive World Matchplay look later this month, and he will get his bid underway in opposition to 2023 semi-finalist Joe Cullen.

Former finalist Gerwyn Value meets Northern Eire’s newly topped World Cup champion Daryl Gurney, whose Northern Eire team-mate Josh Rock takes on former European Champion Ross Smith for the second straight yr.

Chris Dobey faces German No 2 Ricardo Pietreczko, as Australian No 1 Damon Heta goes up in opposition to former UK Open champion Andrew Gilding.

5-time quarter-finalist Dave Chisnall and World Grand Prix champion Mike De Decker additionally collide, with 2022 semi-finalist Danny Noppert awaiting debutant Cameron Menzies in spherical one.

When and the place is the World Matchplay?

The 2025 Betfred World Matchplay will happen from July 19-27 on the iconic Winter Gardens in Blackpool, as a star-studded 32-player subject compete for the £200,000 high prize.

The primary spherical of the game’s summer season showpiece sees the world’s high 16 gamers seeded and pitted in opposition to the highest 16 qualifiers from the one-year ProTour Rankings.

The game’s greatest names will compete throughout 9 days of motion on the Empress Ballroom, with £800,000 in prize cash and the coveted Phil Taylor Trophy up for grabs, all of it reside on Sky Sports activities.

Who’s collaborating within the males’s occasion?

Humphries will take centre stage on Saturday’s opening evening, as former champions Aspinall and Wade additionally star in a bumper line-up.

Littler will headline Sunday’s double-session alongside the likes of Bunting, Clayton, Cross and Anderson, earlier than Van Gerwen and Value enter the fray on Day Three, as the primary spherical attracts to an in depth on Monday night.

First-round draw:

Luke Humphries (1) vs Gian van Veen
Danny Noppert (16) vs Cameron Menzies
Nathan Aspinall (8) vs Wessel Nijman
James Wade (9) vs Joe Cullen
Stephen Bunting (4) vs Ryan Joyce
Gary Anderson (13) vs Luke Woodhouse
Jonny Clayton (5) vs Martin Schindler
Dave Chisnall (12) vs Mike De Decker
Luke Littler (2) vs Ryan Searle
Peter Wright (15) vs Jermaine Wattimena
Damon Heta (7) vs Andrew Gilding
Rob Cross (10) vs Dirk van Duijvenbode
Michael van Gerwen (3) vs Raymond van Barneveld
Ross Smith (14) vs Josh Rock
Chris Dobey (6) vs Ricardo Pietreczko
Gerwyn Value (11) vs Daryl Gurney

What’s the format?

The World Matchplay is a legs format, with the variety of legs required to win growing because the rounds go on.

Every match should be received by two clear legs except the rating is tied after six legs.

Spherical 1: first to 10 legs (sudden demise at 12-12)
Spherical 2: first to 11 legs (sudden demise at 13-13)
Quarter-finals: first to 16 legs (sudden demise at 18-18)
Semi-finals: first to 17 legs (sudden demise at 19-19)
Last: first to 18 legs (sudden demise at 20-20)

Who’re the earlier winners?

The World Matchplay has a protracted record of stellar winners, with Humphries heading into the 2025 match because the defending champion.

The primary winner was Larry Butler again in 1994 earlier than Phil Taylor then picked up his first win of 16 (sure, 16) in 1995.

Taylor additionally received the 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2017 Matchplays.

Throughout his 2002 win, Taylor additionally threw the primary ever televised nine-darter and such dominance led to the trophy being renamed after him in 2018.

Different winners embrace Michael van Gerwen (2015, 2016 and 2022), Gary Anderson (2018), Rob Cross (2019), Dimitri Van den Bergh (2020), and Peter Wright (2021).

What’s the prize fund?

It’s honest to say there’s a lot at stake!

Winner £200,000
Runner-Up £100,000
Semi-Finalists £50,000
Quarter-Finalists £30,000
Second Spherical Losers £15,000
First Spherical Losers £10,000

Whole £800,000

When is the ladies’s World Matchplay?

The ladies’s World Matchplay takes place within the afternoon of Sunday July 27, reside on Sky Sports activities.

Eight of the highest ladies’s gamers on the earth will battle it out to be topped champion on the Winter Gardens stage in what’s the fourth version of the ladies’s occasion.

Who’s within the ladies’s occasion?

Eight of the highest ladies’s gamers will participate within the occasion, with defending back-to-back champion Beau Greaves returning to Blackpool, she will probably be joined by Fallon Sherrock, Kirski Viinikainen, Lisa Ashton, Robyn Byrne, Noa-Lynn van Leuven, Lorrain Winstanley, and Gemma Hayter.

Quarter-final draw:

Beau Greaves vs Kirski Viinikainen

Lisa Ashton vs Robyn Byrne

Noa-Lynn van Leuven vs Lorraine Winstanley

Fallon Sherrock vs Gemma Hayter

Who’re the earlier winners?

The ‘Queen of the Palace’ Sherrock was the inaugural winner of the Ladies’s Matchplay when she received again in 2022 within the first absolutely televised ladies’s match as she beat Aileen de Graaf 6-3 within the closing.

From then, Greaves has gone to win the match in each 2023 and 2024. In 2023, she trounced Mikuru Suzuki 6-1 and in 2024, she saved maintain of the trophy with a 6-3 win over Sherrock.