Cazoo Masters Darts 2023 | Day One Preview and Order of Play
The 2023 Cazoo Masters gets under way in Milton Keynes on Friday as a host of big names aim to make a winning start to the new season.
The eleventh staging of the annual invitational features 24 of the world’s top players competing over three days at the Marshall Arena for a record prize fund of £275,000.
Players ranked 9-24 will start out in the First Round on opening night, while those ranked 1-8 will enter the tournament at the Second Round stage on Saturday.
Reigning champion Joe Cullen launches the defence of his title with a clash against world number 21 Chris Dobey.
Cullen captured his first televised title here 12 months ago and with it secured a debut appearance in the Premier League – where he was agonisingly defeated by 11-10 Michael van Gerwen in the final.
Back-to-back quarter-finalist in the Grand Slam and Players Championship Finals last November, Cullen was beaten by eventual champion Michael Smith in the Last 16 of the World Championship, ending the season as world number 12.
Dobey is making his second appearance at The Masters, having lost in the Second Round two years ago, and enjoyed a landmark run to his first World Championship Quarter-Final at the beginning of the month, having also reached the Semi-Finals of the European Championship last season.
A repeat of the 2020 World Matchplay final sees Dimitri van den Bergh meet Gary Anderson in one of the stand-out ties of the opening round.
The duo also met in last year’s Nordic Masters final, with Van den Bergh coming out on top once again, and Anderson will be out to get one over on the Belgian number one.
Van den Bergh reached his first World Championship Semi-Final at the beginning of the month and was also in recent World Series action in Bahrain and Copenhagen.
Anderson comes into the new season as world number 22, his lowest ranking position since joining the PDC back in 2009.
The two-time World Champion, who was runner-up in the 2017 Masters, will be keen to kick-start a resurgence at the first time of asking in Milton Keynes.
James Wade, one of six players to have lifted the Masters trophy since 2013 and an ever-present in the event, kicks off his latest campaign with a tie against debutant Callan Rydz.
Wade, who triumphed in Edinburgh in 2014 and was also runner-up in 2019, looks to bounce back from his shock Second Round exit at the World Championship last month.
Rydz also suffered an early defeat at Ally Pally after reaching the Quarter-Finals 12 months earlier but starts the season inside the top 24 for the first time.
Nathan Aspinall, twice a major finalist last season, starts out against former Lakeside World Champion Stephen Bunting.
Aspinall enjoyed a superb revival in 2022 which saw him end the year as world number nine with two ProTour titles and three European Tour Semi-Finals to his name.
Bunting ended the year strongly with a run to the Quarter-Finals at Ally Pally, losing out to eventual champion Michael Smith by five sets to three, and is out to avert a third consecutive First Round exit at The Masters, having been whitewashed 6-0 by Dave Chisnall last time out.
Chisnall went on to reach the final for the second time, and was again on the losing end, extending his wait for a maiden major title.
An ever-present in The Masters, ‘Chizzy’ has not lost in the opening round since 2018 and starts out against three-time ProTour event winner Ryan Searle.
Searle’s best results came away from the televised stage last season, and the world number 15 will be keen to recapture the form which led him to the final of the 2021 Players Championship Finals.
Meanwhile, former World Grand Prix finalist Dirk van Duijvenbode takes on former World Masters champion Krzysztof Ratajski for the right to face Gerwyn Price in Round Two.
Van Duijvenbode enjoyed his best season to date in 2022, picking up two ProTour titles and reaching the final of the Dutch Masters, as well as the Semi-Finals of the European Championship.
Ratajski is making his third straight appearance at The Masters and starts the year outside of the top 16 after failing to reach a televised ranking Quarter-Final last season.
Reigning European Champion Ross Smith takes on fellow Masters debutant Damon Heta, with World Champion Michael Smith awaiting the winner.
Smith scooped his first major title in Dortmund last October to catapult him to a career-high ranking of 17, and he was narrowly denied in a seventh set decider for the second successive year at the World Championship by Van Duijvenbode in a classic contest which featured a record 31 maximums.
A memorable 2022 for Heta saw him claim World Cup glory for Australia alongside Simon Whitlock, while also picking up the Gibraltar Trophy title and a brace of Players Championships.
Gabriel Clemens aims to continue his World Championship heroics into the new season, and the German number one opens up against Portuguese nemesis Jose de Sousa.
De Sousa has recorded back-to-back wins over Clemens in the World Matchplay and was a semi-finalist in last year’s Masters – his best televised run of the season.
Clemens captured the imagination of the darting public and beyond in Germany courtesy of his ground-breaking run to the Semi-Finals of the World Championship three weeks ago.
His 5-1 thrashing of Price in the Quarter-Finals attracted record TV viewing figures in his homeland and saw him end the season as world number 19, while also moving into the conversation for a Premier League spot.
The action gets under way from 7pm GMT, with First Round matches to be contested over the best of 11 legs.
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Cazoo Masters 2023 Day One Schedule
Friday January 27
First Round
7pm-11pm
Ryan Searle v Dave Chisnall
James Wade v Callan Rydz
Dirk van Duijvenbode v Krzysztof Ratajski
Nathan Aspinall v Stephen Bunting
Dimitri Van den Bergh v Gary Anderson
Jose de Sousa v Gabriel Clemens
Joe Cullen v Chris Dobey
Damon Heta v Ross Smith
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