2025 WM Darts Monday Night Preview – JP
2025 WM Darts Monday Night Preview
James Punt has made a blistering start at the World Matchplay. Three from three on Sunday and he is now 5/6 overall with his match bets. His 2025 WM Darts Monday Night previews and tips are below.
Chris Dobey vs. Ricardo Pietreczko
Dobey’s quest for a first ranking major continues with his sixth crack at the World Matchplay. His best performance was reaching the quarter final two years ago. He has only won two first round matches previously, but he is the 1.30 favourite to make it here tonight.
Dobey has won seven of his last ten matches, hitting six ton plus averages. He does have dips in performance, but his recent B-game has been in the 92-93 ballpark.
Ricardo made his debut last year and he played well enough, averaging 100, but was easily beaten by Luke Humphries, 10-4. Most of Pietreczko’s success has come on the Euro Tour, where he has won one title and been runner up in another. His best performance in a ranking major was to reach the quarter finals of the European Championship last year.
Rapid Rise
Pikachu has only had a tour card since 2023, so his rise up the rankings to number 27 is both impressive and perplexing at the same time. He just doesn’t strike me as a top 30 player. He is very good on the doubles, but he lacks the kind of scoring power to be a top player. His seasonal average is just 91.88 which compares poorly to Dobey’s 96.97.
Pietreczko has won six of his last ten matches but that is a little misleading. He didn’t average more than 94 in any of them and with the greatest respect to his opponents, he didn’t beat anyone of note. His defeats were to Aspinall, Springer, Barry and Dolan.
It is fair to say he gets the most out of his limited talents, and the fact that he gets to play a lot of Euro Tour events in Germany helps. There are many things to like about the Euro Tour, but too many are held in Germany.
Their H2H record is 2-1 to Dobey and he won their only match in 2025, 6-1 at the German Darts Grand Prix.
2025 WM Darts Monday Night Tip: 2 points Chris Dobey to win -2.5 legs @ 1.70 with Hills, Ladbrokes
Gerwyn Price vs. Daryl Gurney
Price is the form player coming into this event. He won the Baltic Sea Darts trophy eight days ago, having been runner up in PC21 a few days before that. He has won eleven of his last twelve matches and has beaten a lot of the top players in the process, including one against Daryl Gurney. That was a 6-1 win in the aforementioned PC21. He is in very good form.
Price was a runner up here in 2022 and reached two quarter finals, but he has lost in the second round for the last two years. Price has won five ranking major titles, but the last was in 2021.
He had a very poor year in the majors last year but made the quarter finals of the World Championships this year and while he didn’t make much impression on the World Masters or UK Open after that, he looks ready to start competing in the big events once again.
Decline
Daryl Gurney has won two ranking majors, but the last was in 2018. He was a top 6 ranked player from 2017 to 2019 but his has dropped down the rankings and found his level around the top 25 mark, which is where he sits today.
His Matchplay record includes two semi-finals and a quarter final. Superchin has won six of his nine first round matches. He has won seven of his last ten matches and is playing well enough, but he lacks the firepower and consistency of Price.
These two met at this stage of the tournament last year and Price won that 10-4. Their overall H2H record is 13-5, but they had no less than four Premier League draws. They have played three best of nineteen leg matches and Price won them all, 10-4, 10-6 and 10-7.
Iceman Fav
Price is the 1.30 favourite, Gurney 3.70. When Gurney was playing at the elite level, these two were evenly matched and pretty fierce rivals. These days Price is the big favourite.
He would need to have an off day, or Gurney to find his A+ game to see a surprise tonight. Price isn’t having many off days and Gurney’s very best performances are increasingly rare. In his last 50 matches he has hit five ton plus averages, and a one in ten chance that he plays his A+ game is about right.
2025 WM Darts Monday Night Tip: 1 point Gerwyn Price to win -2.5 legs @ 1.80 with Skybet, Fitzdares
Michael van Gerwen vs. Raymond van Barneveld
Another ‘old school’ match up. Once these two were big rivals as MVG took Barney’s crown as the Dutch number 1. That rivalry was a long time ago and Barney has slipped down the rankings and even retired from the game for a couple of years.
He came back and has found his level on the fringes of the top 30. Barney never won the Matchplay and made just one final back in 2010. Since he came out of retirement he has lost his two first round matches.
Van Gerwen is an interesting case right now. His game has been on a gradual slide since 2016. It was very gradual to start with, but his seasonal win rate fell every year after peaking at 91% in 2016. By the end of 2024 it had fallen to a very respectable 68%. In 2025 it has fallen off a cliff and stands at 51%.
Personal Problems
We now know that the breakdown of his marriage had a large part to play in this collapse in form, but there have been injuries in there as well. His confidence has taken a pounding, and he is no longer ‘the man’. He is still ranked third in the world, but in the form based FDI rankings he is a more realistic sixteenth.
In the FDI rankings there are now three Dutch players ranked higher than him, but Barney is not one of them. He languishes in 50th place.
Van Barneveld has lost five of his last ten matches and in his last six, he has averaged in the 80s four times. Even against an out of form MVG, that will not do. A bit like Daryl Gurney, Barney needs to find something like his A-game to win, but Van Gerwen is opposable right now, Gerwyn Price is not.
MVG Form Struggles
MVG has lost eight of his last ten matches but he has been playing mostly elite level players. His losses were to Littler, Van Duijvenbode, Aspinall (twice), Price and Cross. No great shame in those.
However, he has also been beaten by much less fancied players. Dominic Gruellich, Mario Vandenbogaerde, Rhys Griffin, Maik Kuivenhoven, Ryan Meikle and Boris Krčmar all in the last four months.
Can Barney join the list of fairly average players to take down the one-time King? Their H2H record is 42-20 to MVG, but most of that is ancient history. Of more relevance is their record since Barney returned to the game after his short-lived retirement in 2021. Since then, it is 4-1 to MVG. They last played in a World Series event in January 2024 which MVG won 6-5.
Barney Can Raise Game
Even this reduced version of Van Gerwen should be too good for Van Barneveld, but no player is going to feel good on the back of losing eight of his last ten matches. Barney is a player who can raise his game and pull off the odd surprise. He likes to remind people, and himself, that he used to be a big beast, but he is just as likely to drop his head and give in far too easily.
Van Gerwen is the 1.44 favourite, Barney 2.95. Is it worth backing Barney outright, or to be more conservative and look for a handicap bet? Barney is 1.83 with +2.5 leg handicap. We might as well just go for the straight win.
2025 WM Darts Monday Night Tip: 1 point Raymand van Barneveld to win @ 2.95 with Livescorebet
Ross Smith vs. Josh Rock
This has the potential to be a cracker, but that largely depends on what Smith can bring to the oche. His A-game, or his frustrating B-game?
Smith has won seven of his last ten matches and he has played some good stuff, but not his best. He is a player that can hit big ton plus averages when he gets his range on the treble 20. He is ranked fourth for 180s per leg over the last 12 months, just behind Josh Rock in third place. Only Dirk van Duijvenbode and Luke Littler hit more than these two. When Smith isn’t hitting his usual share of maximums, he does struggle.
Josh Rock is not dissimilar to Smith in that respect. When he is banging in the 180s he can just blow his opponents away. A large part of how Northern Ireland won the World Cup of Darts was because Rock was all over the treble 20.
It is that firepower that has driven his seasonal average to 98.74. Like Smith, Rock has won seven of his last ten matches and hit five big ton plus averages. His recent B game is a 96 and that is the difference between the two. Rock has a very good B game.
Both players have a seasonal win rate of 70% and won seven of their last ten matches, but Rock is playing better, more often right now.
H2H
Their H2H record is 3-2 to Rock, but it was Smith who beat Rock here in last year’s first round with a 10-4 win. Rock got his big stage revenge with a 10-9 win at this year’s UK Open.
Josh Rock is the 1.67 favourite, Smith 2.35 and that looks about right to me. However, we have to consider the 180s market here, even if it is a bit obvious. Across their five previous matches they have hit a total of 57 maximums at a rate of a whopping 0.89 per leg. In last year’s match their fourteen legs produced ten 180s.
I would expect a closer match this time around, and more 180s. Some players just bounce off each other when it comes to 180s and these two have not disappointed yet. I would say a reasonable expectation would be 12, optimistically, 15.
