Live Darts on Friday | European Darts Championship 2026 Day Two Preview and Order of Play
The first round action continues at the European Darts Championship on Friday as a host of box office names aim to avoid an early exit in Dortmund.
The opening night of the £750,000 ranked major saw former champions James Wade and Rob Cross bow out, alongside Dutch duo Niels Zonneveld and Danny Noppert.
Focus now shifts to the bottom half of the draw, with a number of mouth-watering matches on the cards.
Luke Littler begins his quest to complete a career clean sweep of major titles when he takes on in-form William O’Connor.
The world number one has captured all ten other major silverware over a remarkable three-year period, leaving only this trophy missing from his collection.
His hopes of a seasonal clean sweep were crushed by Jonny Clayton at the World Series Finals, before a shock first round exit followed at the World Grand Prix and a semi-final defeat in the World Youth Championship.
Littler, who has failed to make it beyond the second round in two previous appearances in Dortmund, looks to avoid a potential banana skin at the hands of former World Cup of Darts finalist O’Connor – who reached the quarter-finals in his last European Championship campaign back in 2020.
Meanwhile, a blockbuster all-Dutch clash sees four-time European Champion Michael van Gerwen take on emerging star Kevin Doets.
Van Gerwen went unbeaten in this competition between 2014 and 2017, but his recent form has been a far cry from those glory years and has he tumbled to 13th in the provisional rankings.
The three-time World Champion has not progressed beyond the Last 16 stage of any televised ranking major since reaching the semi-finals of this event 12 months ago and has lost his last three consecutive matches on the European Tour.
Doets, one of only two debutants in this year’s competition, finished runner-up in this season’s Austrian Open and also picked up his first Players Championship title back in May.
Four-time major champion Jonny Clayton looks to silence the partisan German crowd when he faces home favourite Niko Springer.
Clayton has come unstuck in this event in recent years, suffering two second round exits and two first round losses in his last four appearances, though he returns in fine fettle having picked up the Swiss Darts Trophy title just a fortnight ago.
Springer has struggled to kick on from his maiden European Tour triumph last September, reaching just one quarter-final in 15 Euro Tour outings this season and failing to win a match in any of his last five televised ranking majors.
Wessel Nijman, the number two seed, opens up against German number one Martin Schindler.
Nijman was one of only two players to capture multiple European Tour titles this year and is now provisionally ranked inside the world’s top ten for the first time despite having never reached a major ranking quarter-final.
Schindler, a three-time European Tour event winner, snuck in to this year’s European Championship despite just two quarter-final appearances this term, and he has ominously recorded just one win in six previous appearances in this event.
Former World Cup of Darts winner Josh Rock faces a tough opening assignment against former Masters champion Chris Dobey.
Both players will be determined to put a poor run of form behind them, with Rock having suffered a first round exit at the World Grand Prix and several early exits on the European Tour, while Dobey is without a win on a major stage since February’s World Masters and has been blighted by missed doubles of late.
Two-time major winner Nathan Aspinall also looks to avert a potential scalp at the hands of Spain’s Cristo Reyes.
Aspinall picked up his fourth European Tour title at the German Darts Grand Prix in April and was a semi-finalist at the recent World Grand Prix, though he has not made it past the second round of this event since 2021.
Reyes returns to the European Championship for the first time since 2018 in a rich vein of form, having reached the quarter-finals of the Swiss Darts Trophy and averaged 110 en route to the Last 16 of the Dutch Darts Championship last weekend.
European Darts Open champion Krzysztof Ratajski takes on eight-time European Tour event winner Dave Chisnall.
Third seed Ratajski has suffered first round exits in six of his seven previous European Championship appearances, while Chisnall has lost in the opening round in his last three visits to Dortmund and suffered back-to-back first round defeats in the World Matchplay and World Grand Prix.
The opening tie of the evening sees 2024 runner-up Jermaine Wattimena face Ryan Joyce – who reached the quarter-finals on his debut here 12 months ago.
The action gets under way from 6pm BST, with first round ties to be contested over the best of 11 legs.
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European Darts Championship 2026 Day Two Schedule
All times BST (local time +1 hour)
Friday October 23
Round One
6pm-10pm
Ryan Joyce v Jermaine Wattimena
Krzysztof Ratajski v Dave Chisnall
Nathan Aspinall v Cristo Reyes
Jonny Clayton v Niko Springer
Luke Littler v William O’Connor
Wessel Nijman v Martin Schindler
Kevin Doets v Michael van Gerwen
Josh Rock v Chris Dobey
