72 Star line Up For Ally Pally

01/12/2009

The field for the 2010 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship has now been confirmed, with players from 25 countries competing for the £1 million in prize money at Alexandra Palace from December 18-January 3.

The world's biggest darts tournament will see 72 players battling for the record £200,000 first prize in the sport's first £1 million event. With a field featuring qualifiers from Gibraltar, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden for the first time, three more nations will be represented at Alexandra Palace than the Championship 1 year ago.

In total, 16 players will compete in a preliminary round to try and join the other 56 in the first round proper, with the opening stages held from December 18-23. The second and third rounds will be held after a Christmas break from December 27-30, before the quarter-finals and semi-finals take place on January 1/2, with the final and third-fourth place play-off on Sunday January 3.

The top 32 players from the PDC Order of Merit qualify by right and are seeded in the first round draw, where they come up against the qualifiers from the Players Championship Order of Merit, European Order of Merit, North American Order of Merit and the preliminary round winners.

Ronnie will be seeded Number 7, behind Taylor, Barney, Wade, Part, King and Jenkins.

Mervyn King becomes the number five seed, after jumping above Terry Jenkins in the Order of Merit by reaching the final of the German Darts Championship on Sunday.
Roland Scholten holds on to 32nd place in the Order of Merit, ahead of Barrie Bates, Gary Anderson and Paul Nicholson, who all qualify via the Players Championship Order of Merit.

PDC Order of Merit Qualifiers

1 Phil Taylor (England)

2 Raymond van Barneveld (Netherlands)

3 James Wade (England)

4 John Part (Canada)

5 Mervyn King (England)

6 Terry Jenkins (England)

7 Ronnie Baxter (England)

8 Adrian Lewis (England)

9 Dennis Priestley (England)

10 Colin Lloyd (England)

11 Colin Osborne (England)

12 Alan Tabern (England)

13 Mark Walsh (England)

14 Andy Hamilton (England)

15 Kevin Painter (England)

16 Robert Thornton (Scotland)

17 Wayne Mardle (England)

18 Vincent van der Voort (Netherlands)

19 Steve Beaton (England)

20 Peter Manley (England)

21 Mark Dudbridge (England)

22 Wayne Jones (England)

23 Denis Ovens (England)

24 Jelle Klaasen (Netherlands)

25 Wes Newton (England)

26 Jamie Caven (England)

27 Andy Smith (England)

28 Co Stompe (Netherlands)

29 Kirk Shepherd (England)

30 Michael van Gerwen (Netherlands)

31 Tony Eccles (England)

32 Roland Scholten (Netherlands)

Players Championship Qualifiers

1 Gary Anderson (Scotland)

2 Paul Nicholson (Australia)

3 Andy Jenkins (England)

4 Peter Wright (Scotland)

5 Brendan Dolan (Northern Ireland)

6 Steve Hine (England)

7 Kevin McDine (England)

8 Steve Brown (England)

9 Matt Clark (England)

10 Colin Monk (England)

11 Mark Webster (Wales)

12 Steve Maish (England)

13 Barrie Bates (Wales)

14 Toon Greebe (Netherlands)

15 Alex Roy (England)

16 Carlos Rodriguez (Spain)

European Order of Merit Qualifiers

1 Andree Welge (Germany)

2 Mensur Suljovic (Austria)

3 Dylan Duo (Gibraltar)

4 Jyhan Artut (Germany)

North American Order of Merit Qualifiers

1 Darin Young (USA)

2 Scott Burnett (USA)

3 Ken MacNeil (Canada)

International Qualifiers

Simon Whitlock (Australia) - DPA Australian Grand Prix Champion

Phillip Hazel (New Zealand) - New Zealand Champion

Aodhagan O'Neill (Ireland) - Irish Matchplay Champion

Les Francis (South Africa) - PDC South African Open Champion

Francisco Ruiz (Spain) - Spanish National Champion

Warren Parry (New Zealand) - Oceanic Masters Champion

Haruki Muramatsu (Japan) - Japanese Champion

Osmann Kijamet (Slovenia) - Eastern European Champion

Norman Madhoo (Guyana) - Caribbean & South American Masters Champion

Christian Perez (Philippines) - Philippines Champion

Jarkko Komula (Finland) - Finnish Pro-Darts Champion

Magnus Caris (Sweden) - Swedish National Champion

Tomas Seyler (Germany) - German National Champion

Per Laursen (Denmark) - Danish Series Champion

Krzysztof Kciuk (Poland) - Polish National Champion

Roman Konchikov (Russia) - Russian National Champion

Plus Chinese National Champion

Preliminary Round Draw

Per Laursen (Denmark) v Christian Perez (Philippines)

Ken MacNeil (Canada) v Norman Madhoo (Guyana)

Jarkko Komula (Finland) v Roman Konchikov (Russia)

Haruki Muramatsu (Japan) v Krzysztof Kciuk (Poland)

Tomas Seyler (Germany) v Chinese Qualifier

Magnus Caris (Sweden) v Francisco Ruiz (Spain)

Aodhagan O'Neill (Ireland) v Les Francis (South Africa)

Phillip Hazel (New Zealand) v Osmann Kijamet (Slovenia)