Market2025 World Grand Prix (darts)
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2025 World Grand Prix (darts)

The 2025 World Grand Prix was a professional darts tournament that was held at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester, England, from 6 to 12 October 2025. It was the 28th staging of the World Grand Prix by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). The total prize fund was £600,000, with the winner receiving £120,000.

Overview
Background (pictured in 2017) in Leicester, England. The 2025 World Grand Prix was the 28th edition of the tournament to be staged by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) since the 1998 edition. The tournament is unique as it is the only event in the darts calendar that uses the "double in, double out" format, in which players must start on a double or the bullseye to start scoring and do the same to win a leg. The inaugural edition in 1998 featured matches consisting of sets played to the best of three legs, with Phil Taylor winning the final 13–8 against Rod Harrington. After first serving as host venue for the 2001 event, the Citywest Hotel in Dublin became the regular home of the tournament. In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Grand Prix was relocated to England due to the Citywest being used for health services, with the event being held in Leicester since 2021. Brendan Dolan became the first player to hit a double-start nine-dart finish, achieving the feat in his match against James Wade at the 2011 World Grand Prix; Wade and Robert Thornton both hit nine-darters in their match at the 2014 event. The 2025 edition took place from 6 to 12 October 2025 at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester. Irish gambling company BoyleSports continued its sponsorship of the event, having extended its partnership with the PDC until 2027. Mike De Decker entered the tournament as defending champion after defeating Luke Humphries 6–4 in the 2024 final to win his first PDC major title. De Decker looked to become the third player to retain the World Grand Prix, after Phil Taylor and Michael van Gerwen. Reigning world champion Luke Littler and world number one Humphries were seen as the pre-tournament favourites to win the title. Format The tournament featured 32 players; the top 16 players on the PDC Order of Merit were seeded and were drawn to compete against the 16 qualifiers from the PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit in the first round. As per the "double in, double out" format, players had to begin a leg by hitting a double or the bullseye and do the same to win a leg. The amount of sets required to win a match increased as the tournament progressed: Prize money The prize fund remained at £600,000, with £120,000 going to the winner. The prize fund breakdown was: Broadcasts The tournament is broadcast on Sky Sports in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Other broadcasters include DAZN in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; Viaplay in the Netherlands and Scandinavia; Fox Sports in Australia; Sky Sport in New Zealand; VTM in Belgium; Peacock in the United States; FanDuel in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Brazil; Nova in Czechia and Slovakia; L'Équipe in France; AMC Sport in Hungary; Zonasport in Croatia and Arena Sport in the Balkans. It was also available on the PDC's streaming service, PDCTV, for international subscribers. ==Qualification==
Qualification
(pictured in 2024) entered the tournament as defending champion. The 32 participants comprised two qualification routes. The top 16 players on the two-year PDC Order of Merit at the cut-off point on 29 September were seeded for the tournament. The top 16 players on the one-year PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit, not to have already qualified through the main ranking, were unseeded. The final tournament before the cut-off date for qualification was the 2025 Swiss Darts Trophy. Two-time runner-up Dave Chisnall failed to qualify for the event for the first time since 2011, having been overtaken by Raymond van Barneveld on the Pro Tour Order of Merit and by Martin Schindler on the PDC Order of Merit during the Swiss Darts Trophy. 2023 world champion Michael Smith, 2024 European champion Ritchie Edhouse, 2011 World Grand Prix runner-up Brendan Dolan and 2024 World Grand Prix semi-finalist Dimitri Van den Bergh also missed out on qualification. Wessel Nijman and Niko Springer made their tournament debuts, with the latter winning his first PDC ranking title at the 2025 Hungarian Darts Trophy to enter the field in his first year as a professional player. 2007 and 2010 champion James Wade qualified for his 21st consecutive World Grand Prix, a tournament record. The following players qualified for the tournament: PDC Order of Merit(runner-up) (champion)(first round)(second round)(first round)(semi-finals)(quarter-finals)(first round)(second round)(second round)(first round)(quarter-finals)(semi-finals)(first round)(first round)(first round) Pro Tour Order of Merit(first round)(first round)(quarter-finals)(first round)(first round)(quarter-finals)(second round)(first round)(second round)(second round)(first round)(first round)(second round)(second round) • • (first round) ==Summary==
Summary
First round (pictured in 2024) achieved the highest three-dart average in World Grand Prix history, averaging 106.47 despite losing 2–0 to Luke Littler. The first round was played on 6 and 7 October. World number one and 2023 World Grand Prix champion Luke Humphries began his campaign with a victory against Nathan Aspinall by 2–0 in sets. Aspinall achieved a 170 checkout in the second leg of the match but went on to lose the first set 3–2. Humphries opened the next set with a 156 finish before claiming the next two legs to win the match. Humphries commented afterwards that his starting doubles helped him, as his scoring was "a bit strange" and his darts "just didn't want to drop in". Krzysztof Ratajski set up a meeting with Humphries in the second round by defeating 16th seed Martin Schindler 2–0, only dropping one leg during the match. Debutant Wessel Nijman also missed a match dart to progress to the next round as he lost a deciding leg to Rob Cross. Despite only winning two legs, Van Veen broke the record for the highest three-dart average in tournament history by averaging 106.47 in defeat, besting Alan Warriner-Little's 106.45 average at the 2001 event. On the match, Littler said that Van Veen "played his part in a brilliant game" and that getting his first win at the event "feels amazing". World number three and six-time champion Michael van Gerwen exited in the first round for the second year in a row, losing 2–0 to Dirk van Duijvenbode. Defending champion Mike De Decker came back from one set down to beat 15th seed Peter Wright 2–1, while 2017 champion Daryl Gurney defeated 14th seed Ross Smith 2–0. Luke Humphries advanced to the quarter-finals by defeating Krzysztof Ratajski 3–1. Despite the scoreline, Humphries revealed that he went off stage at the interval unhappy with how he was playing and started throwing slower, which helped him improve. He explained: "On the practice board I am hitting everything and then I am going out there and not so I needed to change something." Cameron Menzies took the first set in his match against ninth seed Rob Cross in a deciding leg and whitewashed Cross in the second. Menzies missed a total of eight match darts before winning the match 3–1 with his ninth. Progressing to his second major quarter-final, having previously reached the last eight of the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts, Menzies lamented that his missed match darts "weren’t really badly thrown. They were all on the wire". Luke Littler ended Mike De Decker's reign as World Grand Prix champion as he defeated the defending champion 3–0, winning the match with a 170 checkout. De Decker missed 41 doubles in 11 legs, resulting in Littler calling the match "a bit boring at times" as he "expected something from the reigning champion". Gerwyn Price, who won eight consecutive legs and completed a 10-dart leg, beat Josh Rock 3–0 to set up a quarter-final tie with Littler. Price opted to start on double 13 during the match, explaining that he hit it "all the time" in practice and thought it, or double 6, was easier than going for double 20. Gerwyn Price took a 2–0 lead against Luke Littler to go one set away from eliminating the pre-tournament favourite. At 2–1, Littler landed a 154 checkout with Price on the brink of victory, with Price also missing three match darts to win the match, allowing Littler to level at 2–2 and send the match into a deciding set. Price left a two-dart combination to win, but Littler converted a 152 checkout to triumph and complete his comeback. Littler described the contest as "very, very strange", adding: "I just thought 'It’s now or never' after going 2–0 down. I had to switch on." Price responded to the defeat on Instagram, stating that Littler played "great in patches" while also bringing attention to crowd behaviour: "This is why we need to play majors in neutral venues/countries." Humphries appeared in his third consecutive World Grand Prix semi-final, while Noppert and Clayton reached the last four for the first time since the 2021 edition. Littler competed in his first semi-final. Clayton's run meant that he had reached the semi-finals of every televised ranking event up to that point, after also reaching the final four of the World Masters, the UK Open and the World Matchplay. Noppert earned his first set in a deciding leg and responded to Humphries going 4–1 ahead by winning the next two, pulling the score back to 4–3 and sparking a potential comeback, having won three of the last four sets. However, Humphries opened the eighth set with a 135 checkout to break throw, followed by a 110 finish to hold, before eventually winning the match 5–3 by pinning double 12. Humphries contested his third consecutive World Grand Prix final, after winning the 2023 tournament, his first PDC major title, and losing the 2024 final to Mike De Decker. Littler entered the match having won 14 of the pair's 24 previous meetings. (pictured with the trophy) won the event for the first time in his second appearance. Littler opened the final by winning the first leg with a hold of throw, but struggled to double in during the second, beginning his scoring with his 13th dart. The pair exchanged breaks of throw in the third and fourth but Littler took the opening set in a deciding leg. In the second set, Humphries went 2–0 down but found his way back with legs of 13 and 11 darts, only for Littler to score 177 to leave a 64 checkout, which he would take out to establish a two-set lead. Humphries avoided a complete whitewash in sets as he converted a 154 checkout to make it 4–1. Littler won the World Grand Prix for the first time, marking his fourth major title won in 2025—after the 2025 World Championship, UK Open and World Matchplay—and his seventh PDC major title overall, while Humphries finished as runner-up for the second straight year. Littler, who revealed that he would be taking part in the PDC World Youth Championship the following day, expressed that he was "very happy to tick [the World Grand Prix] off" his list of achievements, leaving only the European Championship, Players Championship Finals and World Masters for him to win to complete the set of major singles titles in the PDC. Commenting on the race for world number one, Littler noted that £70,000 was "not a lot of prize money" to make up and that Humphries will know he would be "behind his back now". "Double 16 was my friend for the last three years and tonight it wasn’t," Humphries stated disappointingly, striving to practice harder to match his opponent's levels in the future. ==Schedule==
Draw
The draw was confirmed on 29 September. Numbers to the left of a player's name show the seedings for the top 16 in the tournament. The figures to the right of a player's name state their three-dart average in a match. Players in bold denote match winners. Final ==Top averages==
Top averages
The table lists all players who achieved a three-dart average of at least 100 in a match. ==References==
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