Premier League Darts 2025 Night Nine Preview and Order of Play | Big guns do battle in Berlin
Premier League Darts heads to Germany for Night Nine on Thursday as the big names battle it out in Berlin.
The league phase is now entering the second half, with the opening eight nights having been won by only three different players, while a record three nine-darters have also been landed.
Runaway league leader Luke Littler is bidding to claim a third consecutive weekly title for the first time and what would be a record fifth of the campaign.
The defending champion has joined Jonny Clayton, Gerwyn Price, Michael Smith and Luke Humphries in securing four nightly wins since the introduction of this format in 2022 and is now aiming to enter uncharted territory by making it five wins from nine nights.
Littler finds himself eight points clear at the top of the table and boasts a tournament average of 103.8, with a staggering 102 maximums to his name across 20 matches.
Runner-up in Berlin last year, Littler opens up on his return with a clash against Chris Dobey – whom he narrowly defeated 6-5 in Brighton.
Dobey remains second from bottom on five points, having won just one match since finishing runner-up on opening night in Belfast.
Dobey’s homecoming in Newcastle last week ended in a 6-3 defeat to Humphries in the quarter-finals, leaving him seven points adrift of the play-off places.
Michael van Gerwen, last year’s winner in Berlin, takes on Gerwyn Price – a winner of two weekly titles so far this season.
Van Gerwen’s only appearance in a weekly final so far this season came in Cardiff a fortnight ago, where he was denied by nine-dart hero Littler, and the Dutchman has picked up 13 points thanks to a further five semi-final appearances.
However, he suffered only his second quarter-final exit of the campaign last time out at the hands of Nathan Aspinall in a deciding leg and skipped the midweek ProTour double-header in Leicester.
Price claimed glory on Night Three in Dublin and Night Six in Nottingham and heads to Berlin in fine fettle after picking up a Players Championship title on Monday.
The Welshman will be keen to replicate that clinical form on the Premier League stage as he bids to avoid a third straight quarter-final defeat.
World number one Humphries aims to close the gap on rival Littler in the race for top spot and kicks off with a clash against Rob Cross.
The last meeting between the pair came in Brighton on Night Five, when Humphries landed a sensational nine-darter, only to lose the match 6-4 amid a 111.2 average from Cross.
Humphries’ two weekly titles came in the opening four nights and he ended a run of three straight quarter-final exits by reaching the final on Tyneside last week, only to be thrashed 6-1 by Littler.
Cross remains firmly in the play-off picture, level on 12 points with Price in fourth spot, having reached the semi-finals in each of the last five weeks.
The opening fixture of the evening sees sixth placed Nathan Aspinall take on rock bottom Stephen Bunting.
Aspinall, runner-up on Night Three and Night Five, edged out Van Gerwen in a deciding leg last week before losing out to Humphries by the same narrow margin despite averaging 101.
Aspinall defeated Bunting 6-2 with a 106.5 average en route to the Night Five final in Brighton and will be keen to replicate that display and extend The Bullet’s barren run.
Bunting remains in search of his first win of the season, with a record eighth straight defeat in this format coming in the shape of a 6-0 whitewash at the hands of a rampant Littler last time out.
The former Masters champion is averaging 97.5 for the tournament, the fifth highest of the field, and will be determined to stop the rot and kick-start a potential revival in the second half of the league phase.
The action gets under way from 6pm BST, with all matches to be contested over the best of 11 legs.
WATCH PREMIER LEAGUE DARTS STREAMED LIVE HERE
18+ | Geo Restrictions may apply | Please Gamble Responsibly
Premier League Darts 2025 Night Nine Schedule
Thursday April 3
6pm-10pm
Quarter-Finals
Nathan Aspinall v Stephen Bunting
Luke Humphries v Rob Cross
Chris Dobey v Luke Littler
Michael van Gerwen v Gerwyn Price
Semi-Finals
Aspinall/Bunting v Humphries/Cross
Dobey/Littler v Van Gerwen/Price
Final
