Live Darts on Wednesday | World Darts Championship 2025/26 Day Seven Preview and Order of Play

Two darting icons commence their 2025/26 World Darts Championship campaigns at Alexandra Palace on Wednesday night.

Five seeds have already crashed out of the £1m showpiece at the first hurdle, and a clutch of big names will be out to avert a similar fate on Day Seven.

Ten-time major winner James Wade launches his latest quest for an elusive world title with a clash against Japan’s Ryusei Azemoto.

Wade is widely regarded as the greatest player yet to win a World Championship, having largely failed to find the formula on the sport’s greatest stage.

The 42-year-old, who made his BDO World Championship debut in 2003, has featured in every PDC World Championship since 2005, reaching the semi-finals on four occasions.

The Aldershot left-hander has finished runner-up in both the UK Open and World Matchplay this year and comes into the tournament as the seventh seed, looking to atone for three consecutive Last 64 exits at Ally Pally.

Wade’s first test comes in the shape of 30-year-old Azemoto – who lost out in a deciding set to Wesley Plaisier on his debut here 12 months ago and sealed an immediate return to the palace by finishing fourth on this year’s PDC Asian Tour Order of Merit.

Meanwhile, five-time World Champi0n Raymond van Barneveld opens up with a tricky tie against Switzerland’s Stefan Bellmont.

Van Barneveld won arguably the greatest World Championship final in PDC history back in 2007, defeating arch rival Phil Taylor in a sudden death leg in the final staging of the event at the Circus Tavern.

Since then, he has finished runner-up to Taylor at Ally Pally in 2009 and went on to reach a further five semi-finals before a year-long hiatus from the sport.

The Dutch darting icon made the Last 16 here two years ago, losing out to eventual finalist Luke Littler, but was then dumped out by Nick Kenny in the second round last time out.

Barney has failed to win a match in any of his four major televised ranking tournaments this season and comes up against Swiss number one Bellmont – who made his debut at the recent Grand Slam, bowing out in the group stage despite victory over Wade.

Bellmont finished top of this year’s Challenge Tour Order of Merit with three titles to his name and is looking to atone for last year’s straight sets defeat to Jermaine Wattimena in round one.

German number one Martin Schindler starts out against Tour Card holder qualifier Stephen Burton in the final match of the evening.

Schindler, a three-time European Tour event winner, also picked up a maiden ProTour title in 2025 and comes into the tournament as 13th seed.

Having seen his compatriot Niko Springer crash out of the competition at the hands of Aussie qualifier Joe Comito on Tuesday night, Schindler will be keen to give the partisan German contingent at Ally Pally cause for celebration.

Three-time Challenge Tour event winner Burton came through the last-chance qualifier in November to secure a third World Championship appearance, having suffered successive 3-0 defeats here in 2018/19 and 2024/25.

The opening match of the night features a North American showdown between Canadian number one Matt Campbell face Adam Sevada of the USA.

Back-to-back North American champion Campbell reached the third round here two years ago, defeating Wade before eventually going down 4-1 to Littler.

The two-time ProTour finalist is provisionally 66th in the Order of Merit and must win here in order to climb back into the provisional top 64 and keep his tour card hopes alive.

Sevada is making his Ally Pally debut as the top-ranked American from the CDC ProTour and has also featured in the US Darts Masters at Madison Square Garden.

The action gets under way from 7pm GMT, with first round ties to be contested over the best of five sets.

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World Darts Championship 2025/26 Day Seven Schedule

Wednesday December 17

First Round

7pm-11pm
Matt Campbell v Adam Sevada
Raymond van Barneveld v Stefan Bellmont
James Wade v Ryusei Azemoto
Martin Schindler v Stephen Burton