2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Preview

James Punt got off to a tricky start on Thursday but Madars Razma’s 3-1 win ensured we finished with one winner at odds of 4.00. We have previews for every match at the Ally Pally today, check out James’ 2026 PDC WC R1 Friday preview is below.

Afternoon Session

Niels Zonneveld vs. Haupai Puha

Zonneveld has lost five of his last ten matches but he is playing OK. He has had a reasonable season but he has not enjoyed much joy at Ally Pally. He has played four first round matches and lost three.

Haupai Puha will be playing in his third World Championship. He lost his previous two first round matches, winning just one set. He comes here this time as Tour Card holder, but things haven’t really worked out since he won a tour cared in January 2024. Puha has only won sixteen matches from thirty events in this year’s Players Championship events and he needs to have a bit of a run here if he is to keep his card, if he wants to.

Puha came through the Tour Card holder qualifier which ended a run of seven straight defeats. He has played Zonneveld four times and lost three, but three of the four matches went to a deciding leg.

Zonneveld is the 1.33 favourite, Puha 3.50. Maybe the Kiwi can get a set on the board.

2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Tip: 0.5 point Zonneveld to win 3-1 @ 3.50 with Betfred

Ian White vs. Merv King

A bit of a nostalgia trip with this one. Merv King lost his Tour Card at the end of last year. Since then, he has played on the Challenge Tour and finished fourth on the OOM which earned him a place here. He will be very keen to win this match after his problem with the HMRC which led to him being made bankrupt. He didn’t think prizemoney was taxable, so didn’t declare it for 20 years. Whoopsie!

King reached the quarter finals here as recently as 2022 and while he didn’t qualify for the last two years, he has won his last five first round matches here.

Low Win Rate

Ian White still plays on the Pro Tour, but his win rate in 2025 is just 50% and he has lost seven of his last ten matches. He is playing better opponents than King is, but he can’t be feeling that confident.

White has played thirteen first round matches here, won six and twelve were under 4.5 sets. Win or lose, a 3-1 scoreline looks very likely.

Ian White is the 1.73 favourite with King 2.20. Under 4.5 sets is 1.50. Their H2H record is 10-7 to White. They did play a Players Championship match in July which King won 6-3. He has won four of their last five, going back to 2021.

I guess King needs the money more than White. Maybe that will be enough motivation for him. Hopefully he remembers to declare any winnings this time.

2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Tip: 0.5 point Merv King to win 3-1 @ 5.50 generally available

Ryan Searle vs. Chris Landman

Searle’s lack of ambition led him to not even bothering to try to qualify for the Grand Slam. He really has adopted Gary Anderson’s playbook. He doesn’t care for travelling much, thinks he should have qualified for the Grand Slam as he won two Players Championship titles in 2025 and he does seem to be a bit disinterested in the whole thing.

However, he said that he has put the time in getting ready for Ally Pally, and he usually picks up a nice enough cheque.

Searle has played in seven previous World Championships, has always won his first round and always reached the third or fourth round. His recent form is not good having lost six of his last ten matches, but in the seven first round matches he has played here, Searle was won all seven, and four of them to nil. He has only dropped one set in the last four first round matches.

Journeyman

Chris Landman is a bit of a journeyman and set to lose his card after this, unless he goes on a bit of a run. He has won five of his last ten matches and had six sub 90 averages. Landman has played in two PDC World Championships, winning a first round match in 2022. He has played nine PDC TV major matches, won just two and averaged over 90 just once.

Their H2H record is 3-1 to Searle, all floor matches, and the most recent was a 6-4 win for Searle nine weeks ago. They have all been fairly close matches, 6-4 or 6-5, but Searle is the better player and much more at home on this stage.

2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Tip: 0.5 point Ryan Searle to win 3-0 @ 3.25 with Hills, Skybet

Rob Cross vs. Cor Dekker

Rob Cross failed to qualify for the Grand Slam and went out in the first round of the Players Championship and has lost seven of his last ten matches. It is not just a sudden dip in form, but months of poor play and a long slide into mediocrity.

His seasonal win rate is just 53% and it is hard to remember that Cross was a Premier League player earlier this year. It didn’t go well, he was still banging in big averages but by late summer and the autumn his scoring was poor and he is now struggling to average over 90 rather than over 100.

Tax Issues

In June he was banned as a company director after he failed to pay nearly £0.5million in tax. He says that has nothing to do with his loss of form, but the two things do seem to coincide. He now says that he has just been lazy, taking too much time off, not practicing and so on.

Voltage has been in the gym recently, pumping iron, trying to gain strength as he felt his throw was bit weak. He is throwing a dart, not a shot putt for goodness sake. We shall have to wait and see if the gym is the answer, but I remain sceptical.

Cross is a past Champion and a semi-finalist as recently as 2024, but his game has faded dramatically in recent months.

Debutant

Cor Dekker, the huge Norwegian, is making his World Championship debut. He only won a Tour Card in January and while he hasn’t set the world on fire, he reached the semi-final of the Swiss Darts Trophy at the end of September. That was enough to qualify him via the 2025 Pro Tour OOM. He hit a nine darter in his only other Euro Tour appearance.

Dekker has lost five of his last ten matches and is playing with very little consistency. However, he is hitting a few mid 90 averages and that is likely to be a problem for Cross on his form of the last few months.

Dekker has very limited TV experience and very little stage experience, but that run on the Euro Tour saw him beat Gilding, Wirght, Dobey and Clayton. More recently, he has beaten Daryl Gurney, Cameron Menzies, and Sebastian Bialecki, the young Pole who knocked Cross out of the Players Championship finals.

Cross is the 1.44 favourite, Dekker 3.20. I have to give Dekker some sort of chance if Cross is still struggling with his form.

2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Tip: 1 point Cor Dekker to win +1.5 sets @ 1.98 with Livescorebet

Evening Session

Ross Smith vs. Andreas Harrysson

Have we got the chance of a ‘surprise’ winner here? Andreas ‘Dirty Harry’ Harrysson is a four-time Nordic Baltic tour winner in 2025. He also plays on the Challenge Tour and gets some call ups to Players Championship events, plays in various WDF events and the MODUS Super Series. He plays a lot of darts.

Harrysson has popped up on the Euro Tour this year, beating Barney in the first round, beating Michael Smith 6-1 in the second round, averaging 106. He played in the 2024 Belgian Darts Trophy on the Euro Tour and averaged 107 in a 6-1 win over Gian van Veen, before giving Gary Anderson a hard time, only just losing 5-6 in the second round, averaging 97.

The point I am making is that he has a superb A-game and doesn’t care who he is playing. Harrysson is making his Ally Pally debut.

Ally Pally Veteran

Ross Smith is a veteran of eight previous World Championships. He has played eight first round matches and won four. None have been over four sets and last year he lost 0-3 to Paulo Nebrida in one of the surprise results of round one.

Smudger’s recent form is not good, losing five of his last ten matches. He has played thirteen matches on TV in 2025 and lost eight. His wins came against Ryan Meikle, Peter Wright, Dave Chisnall, Jonny Tata and Jose de Sousa. Hardly a list of form players.

Smith is the 1.29 favourite, Harrysson 4.35. I will have my first bet on a big priced outsider.

2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Tip: 1 point Andreas Harrysson to win @ 4.35 with Livescorebet

Ricky Evans vs. Man Lok Leung

It wouldn’t be Christmas without Ricky Evans at Ally Pally. He’s like the Brussel sprouts of darts. Rapid has a fine tradition of winning his first round matches at Ally Pally. He has played in ten World Championships and won eight first round matches, including his last six in a row.

Evans’ win rate in 2025 is just 50%, but his form has picked up recently. He has won seven of his last ten matches and reached the quarter final of the Grand Slam of Darts last month. After some difficult times in his personal life, he is loved up and feeling happy about life, and that is reflected in his form.

No Stranger

Man Lok Leung is no stranger to Ally Pally himself, having played here two years ago when he averaged 96.26 in a 3-2 win over Gian Van Veen in round one. It was memorable not just for Leung winning, but for the fact that he hit eleven 180s in the match.

He is a two-time winner on the 2025 Asian Tour and qualified as the sixth player on that tour’s OOM. He helped Hong Kong to the quarter finals of this year’s World Cup of Darts, and it is fair to say, he likes the cameras.

Evans is the 1.50 favourite with Leung 2.90. I am going for the obvious bet and an overs on the 180s.

Across his ten first round matches here, Evans has hit forty seven maximums from forty sets, and twenty five from his last five first round matches at 1.32 per set. I think we can expect four plus sets, and even if it is only three, an overs bet at +7.5 maximums is not unreasonable.

2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Tip: 1 point over 7.5 180s @ 2.00 with BET365, Paddy Power

Gian van Veen vs. Cristo Reyes

Van Veen is in great form, winning eight of his last ten matches and playing with consistency. He is one of the game’s heaviest scorers and we have backed him to win this quarter and to make the final.

Many people thought Reyes must have died as his disappearance from the darting radar was swift. In the years around 2015 to 2018, Reyes was a regular feature in the Majors, but his form deserted him and the cost of travelling from Tenerife to mainland Europe and the UK was unsustainable.

Cristo entered this year’s PDC Mediterranean qualifier and won just two qualifying matches to get here. He did average 102.83 in one and 94.92 in the final, so while that is not much of a sample, he can obviously still throw a dart.

Van Veen is the 1.10 favourite, Reyes 10.00. It will be interesting to see how Reyes gets on, but it is not a betting match for me. No bet.

2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Tip: No Bet

Damon Heta vs. Steve Lennon

Heta is the 1.45 favourite and drifting, and I am not surprised. He has looked to be lacking in confidence for a while now. He has lost six of his last ten matches and in the TV majors in 2025 he is on a run of five first round losses.

The Heat did manage a 5-1 win over an out of form Martin Lukeman in the Grand Slam, but got knocked out in the group stage. Four of his last five matches saw sub 90 averages. Heta has won five of his six first round matches here.

Decent R1 Record

Steve Lennon has had a poor year with a win rate of just 43% and he too has lost six of his last ten matches, but one of his wins was a 6-5 win over Heta in the German Darts Championship in mid-October. Lennon has played in six previous World Championships and won four of his first round matches.

Two players who are in poor form doesn’t suggest we are going to get much of a match in terms of quality, but I struggle to see why Heta is such a short price. I thought the bookies had wised up to that old error of pricing up on world rankings rather than form. I will go for the outsider as this could be much more of a toss up than the odds suggest.

2026 PDC WC R1 Friday Tip: 1 point Steve Lennon to win @ 3.25 with SpreadEx

-JamesPunt