2026 WM Darts Monday Preview & Tips – JP
2026 WM Darts Monday Preview & Tips
Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2026 World Matchplay Darts Monday preview and tips. We only managed one winner on Sunday night with Ryan Searle, hopefully we can do better this evening.
Ross Smith vs. Kevin Doets
Smith comes into this having won six of his last ten matches and is playing decent stuff, if a little inconsistent. His A game is winning, his B game, losing. He won PC 20 last month and reached the semi-final of ET9 three weeks later. He is enjoying a good season with a Euro Tour win and now two Players Championship titles. His record in the Matchplay is played four and lost three first round matches.
Doets is making his Matchplay debut and that can be a negative. Of the three debutants who have come before Doets so far, all three have lost. Doets has only played in fifteen TV Majors and not made much of an impact.
First Title
His 2026 season has seen him win his first PDC title in PC13. He was also a runner up on the Euro Tour. That was all during a golden spell in April and May when he was going deep in pretty much everything he played. Just winning one title was a poor return on such good form. More recently, Doets has won six of his last ten matches and he has come off the boil in terms of results but has still hit eight 95+ averages.
Their H2H record is 4-3 to Doets, but this will be their first stage match and their first on TV. Smith is much more experienced in these sort of events.
Two heavy hitters with very similar stats suggests we should have a close match, but the experience of Smith could be the deciding factor. Doets is the marginal 1.91 favourite, Smith 2.05.
2026 World Matchplay Darts Monday Tip: 1 point over 16.5 legs @ 1.74 with Livescorebet
2026 World Matchplay Darts Monday Tip: 0.5 point Smith to win 10-8 @ 9.50 with Boylesports, Ladbrokes
Gerwyn Price vs. Martin Schindler
Price professes to not giving a toss about darts right now. It is just something that takes up his time that he would rather spend elsewhere. He is ripe for opposing…and then he gets Martin Schindler in the draw.
I doubt whether Schindler even books a room when he gets to Blackpool. He has played here for the last four years and lost every first-round match. He lost his debut match 8-10 to Price in 2021.
Schindler’s recent form is very poor, losing seven of his last ten matches and hitting six sub 80 averages. I was looking forward to opposing him…but then he draws Price.
Two players I was looking forward to opposing get drawn together. A horrible match up. You can make a strong case for both players to lose, but struggle to say why one might win.
Both have lost seven of their last ten matches and I couldn’t back either player with stolen money. No bet.
2026 World Matchplay Darts Monday Tip: No Bet
Luke Humphries vs. Cameron Menzies
Humphries comes here fresh. He has played just ten matches in the last two months, eight of them World Series exhibitions. He won eight of them, hit six ton plus averages and just one under 96. His tournament record includes winning the title in 2024 and a semi-final in 2023, but two first round exits either side of those results.
Menzies won his third ever Players Championship title two weeks ago, but the then went to Germany for a Euro Tour event and lost his first-round match to a local qualifier having been 5-1 up. That sort of sums Menzies up. He can be anything, at any time.
Like Humphries, Menzies has won eight of his last ten matches, has played with a good deal of consistency, but not to the same level as Humphries. Menzies lost his first-round match on debut here last year.
H2H
Their H2H record is interesting. 7-2 to Humphries is no surprise, but six of those matches required a deciding leg, including a 10-9 win for Humphries in last year’s European Championship, their last meeting. Menzies has never beaten Humphries on a stage.
Humphries is the 1.14 favourite, Menzies 6.50. The market is expecting a thrashing for Humphries, but Menzies enjoys being the underdog and has given a good account of himself against Humphries in the past, and he is in good form. I would expect a reasonably close match.
2026 World Matchplay Darts Monday Tip: 1 point over 15.5 legs @ 1.91 with Ladbrokes, Hills
Danny Noppert vs. Rob Cross
Rob Cross is in decent form and heading back to somewhere near his best. He has won six of his last ten matches and is playing with a lot of consistency.
Eight 96+ averages in those last ten matches and he is having more good runs, including making the final of ET9 a month ago, and winning PC22 a few days before that. One of his defeats was a 4-6 loss to Danny Noppert a couple of weeks ago.
Flat Noppert
Noppert has not had a great 2026. There have been the usual decent runs ending in defeat at the business end of events, but more recently his performances have been a bit flat.
He too has won six of his last ten matches but hit no tons and posted six sub 94 averages. Noppert has played in seven Matchplays and lost three first round and three second round matches. Cross won this in 2019 and has won six of his nine first round matches.
Their H2H record is 7-5 to Cross, and on TV it is 3-1. I like the way Cross is playing right now, not so much Noppert.
Cross is the 1.62 favourite, Noppert 2.50. I will take Cross to cover the handicap.
