World Darts Championship 2025/26 Day One Preview and Order of Play | Littler headlines opening night
The greatest show on planet darts gets under way on Thursday as Luke Littler launches the defence of his World Darts Championship title at Alexandra Palace.
The waiting is finally over as the sport’s biggest-ever tournament commences in the capital for the first of 20 enthralling days of arrows action.
A record 128 players will descend on Ally Pally in a quest for the Sid Waddell Trophy and unprecedented £1 million top prize to etch their name into the darting history books.
As per tournament tradition, the reigning champion will take centre stage on opening night, with this year’s honour falling to world number one Littler.
The 18-year-old is bidding to join Phil Taylor, Gary Anderson and Adrian Lewis as only the fourth player to successfully retain the PDC world title and cap off an extraordinary year of dominance.
Littler achieved his darting dream on this iconic stage in January with victory over Michael van Gerwen, and the teenage trailblazer has gone on to add a further five major ranking titles, including the UK Open, World Matchplay and Players Championship Finals.
In doing so, he has leapfrogged rival Luke Humphries to become the new world number one and returns to Ally Pally as odds-on favourite to retain the crown and become the sport’s first single tournament millionaire.
Littler will look to put down an immediate marker and avoid a huge potential banana skin when he takes on Lithuania’s Darius Labanauskas on opening night.
Labanauskas is no stranger to producing his ‘A’ game on the sport’s biggest stage, having reached the quarter-finals in 2019/20 and hit a nine-darter in 2021/22.
A former ProTour event finalist, ‘Lucky D’ returns to Ally Pally after a two-year absence and is Lithuania’s sole representative in the competition.
Elsewhere, another stand-out tie sees 2023 World Champion Michael Smith take on reigning Women’s World Matchplay champion Lisa Ashton.
Smith heads into the World Championship in his lowest ranking position (28th) in over a decade following a turbulent season which has largely been hampered by injury.
Runner-up here in 2019 and 2022 before realising his darting destiny a year later, ‘Bully Boy’ failed to qualify for the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and European Championship this season, but has given a strong account of himself in the majors in which he has featured.
The St Helens star reached the quarter-finals of both the UK Open and Grand Slam and has also made it to two ProTour semi-finals, and he will be determined to recapture his blistering best form when he returns to the scene of his greatest triumph.
A familiar opponent lies in waiting for Smith as he prepares to face fellow Lancashire stalwart Ashton – a four-time Women’s World Champion who triumphed in Blackpool at the Women’s World Matchplay in July to secure a fifth PDC World Championship appearance.
The 55-year-old, who also featured in last month’s Grand Slam, has lost in the opening round in all four previous visits to Ally Pally, but has twice taken her opponents to a deciding set.
Raising the curtain on this year’s showpiece is a tie between Belgian icon Kim Huybrechts and German debutant Arno Merk.
Huybrechts has been an ever-present at Ally Pally since his breakthrough run to the quarter-finals on debut in 2012, but is without a win in his last two appearances.
The former Players Championship Finals runner-up has won just one match in a televised major over the last 18 months and comes into the event as world number 53 having also failed to progress beyond the Last 16 in any of his 64 ProTour event appearances over the past two seasons.
Merk sealed his spot in the main event courtesy of winning the PDCE DACH Super League and formerly qualified for the BDO World Championship at Lakeside back in 2011.
Rounding off the opening night is a clash between Latvian number one Madars Razma and Dutch debutant Jamai van den Herik.
Razma returns for his seventh consecutive World Championship appearance, having reached Round Three in each of his last two campaigns.
The three-time ProTour event finalist reached the Last 32 of this year’s UK Open as well as the semi-finals of a Players Championship event.
Van den Herik, 22, clinched his place in the event by finishing fifth on the 2025 Development Tour Order of Merit courtesy of two tournament wins, and also bagged a brace of Challenge Tour titles, finishing sixth in the overall rankings.
The action gets under way from 7pm GMT, with first round ties to be contested over the best of five sets.
WATCH THE WORLD DARTS CHAMPIONSHIP STREAMED LIVE HERE
18+ | Geo Restrictions may apply | Please Gamble Responsibly
World Darts Championship 2025/26 Day One Schedule
Thursday December 11
First Round
7pm-11pm
Kim Huybrechts v Arno Merk
Michael Smith v Lisa Ashton
Luke Littler v Darius Labanauskas
Madars Razma v Jamai van den Herik
