Live Darts on Sunday | World Darts Championship 2025/26 Day Four Preview and Order of Play

A host of crowd favourites commence their World Darts Championship campaigns at Alexandra Palace on Sunday.

Day Four of the sport’s biggest-ever event features another jam-packed double session in front of a capacity crowd, featuring a quartet of former major winners.

The afternoon session includes a stand-out tie between former Masters champion Joe Cullen and former World Youth champion Bradley Brooks.

Cullen, a former Premier League runner-up, has enjoyed another impressive season on the ProTour, picking up two titles and reaching the final of Event One.

However, he has won just one match in televised ranking majors this year, missing out on the European Championship and Grand Slam, and comes into the tournament in his lowest seeding position (28) in a decade.

After defiantly defeating Wessel Nijman against the odds last year, Cullen is again the bookmaker’s outsider of the two here, with Brooks having enjoyed his best season as a professional to date.

The Blackburn ace spectacularly claimed the Players Championship 21 title in July with victory over Gerwyn Price in the final and returns to Ally Pally for the first time since his sudden death defeat to Willie Borland in 2021/22, which saw the Scot seal victory with a remarkable nine-darter.

Meanwhile, Dom Taylor marks his long-awaited Ally Pally debut with a tie against Sweden’s Oskar Lukasiak.

Taylor missed out on last year’s event after serving a one-month ban for a positive drugs test and will be desperate to make up for lost time after reaching two ProTour semi-finals this season to clinch qualification.

Lukasiak finished third in this year’s Nordic & Baltic rankings, winning the opening event of the year, but has struggled for results in his first season as a Tour Card holder, racking up just £9,500 in prize money.

The afternoon’s opener sees 2024 European Champion Ritchie Edhouse take on New Zealand’s Jonny Tata.

Edhouse, the 27th seed, has endured a difficult season following last year’s ground-breaking triumph in Dortmund, reaching just one ProTour quarter-final and failing to qualify for the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix, European Championship and Grand Slam.

Edhouse is without a win in the World Championship in his last three campaigns and faces a potential banana skin against DPNZ Pro Tour winner Tata – who hit the first nine-darter in DPNZ ProTour history this year and has previously defeated Peter Wright in the 2023 New Zealand Masters.

Meanwhile, Dutch ace Richard Veenstra comes up against Indian qualifier Nitin Kumar.

Veenstra, a two-time Lakeside semi-finalist reached the third round here two years ago before suffering a shock straight sets defeat to Alexis Toylo last time out.

Kumar is targeting his first Ally Pally win at the fifth time of asking, having registered his first set 12 months ago in a 3-1 defeat to Martin Lukeman.

Evening Session

All eyes will be on fourth seed Stephen Bunting as he opens up with a tie against emerging Polish star Sebastian Bialecki.

Bunting enjoyed a terrific run to the semi-finals 12 months ago, cementing his place in the Premier League, with eventual champion Luke Littler ending his world title dream with a 6-1 rout on January 2.

Bunting has blitzed to six titles this season, two on the European Tour, two on the ProTour and two on the World Series, underlining his status as one of the most consistent performers on the circuit.

However, his form has dipped at the wrong time of the year, with early exits in the European Championship and Grand Slam, though he boasts a strong record in the sport’s showpiece after reaching at least the quarter-finals in three of his last five appearances.

Bialecki has enjoyed a memorable first season as a Tour Card holder, securing his first ranking title at Players Championship 21 with victories over the likes of Gian van Veen and Danny Noppert along the way.

The 22-year-old also defeated Rob Cross on the Main Stage at the recent Players Championship Finals and returns to Ally Pally for the first time since 2022/23.

Former World Matchplay champion Dimitri van den Bergh looks to put his recent woes behind him when he faces debutant Darren Beveridge.

Van den Bergh has endured a season to forget, failing to qualify for any major ranking tournaments since March’s UK Open, and heads to Ally Pally in his lowest seeded position (23) since 2018/19.

The Belgian star started the year in superb fashion by hitting a nine-darter en route to the semi-finals of the World Masters and despite his absent form for much of the campaign, he will seek encouragement from a run to the quarter-finals of Players Championship 34.

A tough opening assignment sees him face Scotland’s Beveridge – a two-time Challenge Tour event winner who reached the quarter-finals of Players Championship 28 in September.

German star Lukas Wenig looks to reproduce the form which led him to the quarter-finals of the recent Grand Slam when he takes on two-time World Master Wesley Plaisier.

Wenig, a Players Championship event finalist in July, finished top of his group at the Grand Slam after coming through the Tour Card holder qualifier, before defeating Niko Springer 10-8 and eventually losing out to Danny Noppert in the quarter-finals.

Plaisier picked up his first ProTour title as a non-Tour Card holder in 2024 and his first full season on the ProTour has seen him reach one Players Championship semi-final but suffer opening round exits in each of his three major tournament appearances.

Rounding off the evening’s action is a tie between James Hurrell and flamboyant American Stowe Buntz.

Hurrell, a former Lakeside quarter-finalist, reached his first ProTour semi-final in July and also reached the third round of last month’s Players Championship Finals in Minehead.

Buntz, quarter-finalist on his Grand Slam debut in 2023, is eyeing a first World Championship win at the third attempt after qualifying via the CDC ProTour rankings.

The action gets under way from 12.30pm GMT, with first round ties to be contested over the best of five sets.

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World Darts Championship 2025/26 Day Four Schedule

Sunday December 14

First Round

Afternoon Session (12.30pm-5pm)
Ritchie Edhouse v Jonny Tata
Dom Taylor v Oskar Lukasiak
Richard Veenstra v Nitin Kumar
Joe Cullen v Bradley Brooks

Evening Session (7pm-11pm)
Lukas Wenig v Wesley Plaisier
Dimitri van den Bergh v Darren Beveridge
Stephen Bunting v Sebastian Bialecki
James Hurrell v Stowe Buntz