Ladbrokes World Series of Darts: Here’s all you need to know
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The month of August sees some of darts’ finest players travel to Australia for the last two World Series of Darts titles available in preparation for the Ladbrokes WSD finals in November. But what exactly is this tournament, and how do we whittle down the competition come the final weekend in Glasgow?
The WSD has only been running for one year and was initially set up as a way of competitively taking the sport to all four corners of the globe – so as to appeal to the ever-growing darts fan base.
The concept is fairly simple – there are five tournaments held in Dubai, Auckland, Tokyo, Sydney and Perth between May and August, and the top eight players from the aforementioned events are all seeded for the finals.
On top of that, another eight names are thrown into the tournament in recognition of their potential in the sport. These are known as the ‘international prospects’.
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They’ll be joined by the next four highest ranked players in the PDC Order of Merit and four PDC Tour Card qualifiers.
So that leaves us with 24 of the best darts players in the world, all battling it out in Glasgow for the trophy.
The seeded players are automatically put into the second-round, while the remaining 16 are up against each other in round one.
The winners of round one will each face a seeded player in the second-round and after this point the competition will have just eight players still standing in the knockout stages.
And that’s how to break down one of the more intricate formats on the PDC circuit.
Oh, and just for good measure, last year’s winner was Michael van Gerwen (surprise surprise), but MVG only won one of the five titles leading up to the event.
So far this year Gary Anderson is the only man to have his name on a World Series title, winning in Dubai, Tokyo and Auckland. He’s 4/1 to win his fourth in Sydney next week.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
