The 2025 PDC World Masters (known for sponsorship reasons as the 2025

Winmau Winmau, pronounced "win more", is a Welsh manufacturer of dartboards, other darts equipment and title sponsor of the oldest darts tournament still running, the Winmau World Masters. Founded in 1945, Winmau was acquired by rival dartboard manuf ...

World Masters) was a professional

darts Darts or dart-throwing is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small sharp-pointed missiles known as darts at a round target known as a dartboard. Points can be scored by hitting specific marked areas of the ...

tournament that took place at the

Marshall Arena The Marshall Arena (formerly known as Arena MK, also Milton Keynes Arena) is a multi-purpose arena in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, located beside Stadium MK. The multi-use event space is positioned over three floors and anticipates m ...

in Milton Keynes, England, from 30 January to 2 February 2025. It was the 13th Masters to be organised by the

Professional Darts Corporation The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) is a professional darts organisation in the United Kingdom, established in 1992 when a group of leading players split from the British Darts Organisation (BDO) to form what was initially called the Wor ...

and the first under the World Masters rebrand. It was the first time the tournament was ranked and was using set play.

Stephen Bunting Stephen Bunting (born 9 April 1985) is an English professional darts player who competes in events of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Nicknamed The Bullet, Bunting won the 2014 BDO World Darts Championship and is a twice former Wo ...

was the defending champion after beating

Michael van Gerwen Michael van Gerwen (; born 25 April 1989) is a Dutch professional darts player. He is currently PDC Order of Merit, ranked number 3 in the world, having been number 1 from 2014 to 2021. He is also a three-time PDC World Darts Championship, PDC ...

11–7 in the 2024 final. However, he lost 4–3 to

Danny Noppert Danny Noppert (born 31 December 1990) is a Dutch professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. He is a former BDO World Darts Championship finalist, as well as being a Finder Darts Masters champion in 2017, ...

in the quarter-finals.

Luke Humphries Luke Humphries (born 11 February 1995) is an English professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. He won the 2019 PDC World Youth Championship. Career Humphries won five PDC Development Tour titles in 20 ...

won the tournament, defeating

Jonny Clayton Jonny Clayton (born 4 October 1974) is a Welsh professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. Nicknamed The Ferret, he was half of the Welsh team that won the 2020 PDC World Cup of Darts before winning his ...

6–5 in the final.

Dimitri Van den Bergh Dimitri Van den Bergh (born 8 July 1994) is a Belgian professional darts player who currently competes in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. He is a two-time World Youth Champion and the 2020 World Matchplay champion, after beating Ga ...

hit a

nine-dart finish A nine-dart finish, also known as a nine-darter, is a perfect leg or single game in the sport of darts. The object of the game is to score a set number of points, most commonly 501; in order to win, a player must reach the target total exactly an ...

during his second round victory over

Overview

Background

Marshall Arena Milton Keynes 6 July 2020 (cropped)

The inaugural edition of The Masters, the 2013 Masters, was held by the

from 1–3 November 2013 at the

Royal Highland Centre The Royal Highland Centre, originally the Royal Highland Showground, is an exhibition centre and showground located at Ingliston in the western outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland, adjacent to Edinburgh Airport and the A8. History The Royal Highla ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Scotland and broadcast live on

ITV4 ITV4 is a British free-to-air television channel which was launched on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV network. The channel has a line-up that consists of sports, cult classi ...

Phil Taylor Phil Taylor may refer to: * Phil Taylor (musician) (1954–2015), English drummer, best known as "Philthy Animal" Taylor * Phil Taylor (darts player) (born 1960), English darts player * Phil Taylor (American football) (born 1988), American footbal ...

won the first final, defeating

Adrian Lewis Adrian Lewis (born 21 January 1985) is an English professional darts player currently playing in the PDC. He is a two-time PDC World Darts Champion, winning in 2011 and 2012. He is nicknamed Jackpot, as he won a jackpot gambling in Las Vegas ...

10–1. Since 2015, the tournament has been held in Milton Keynes. The tournament initially featured the top 16 players in the world before increasing to the top 24 in 2021. In August 2024, it was announced that for the 2025 event, the field would expand to 32 players and it would be the first edition where the tournament was ranked. However, this preceded a bigger announcement that was made on 28 October. The PDC announced a complete revamp of the competition, rebranding it from The Masters to the World Masters (sponsored by

), emulating the

World Masters The World Masters, known for sponsorship reasons as the Mita/Sky World Masters, was a snooker tournament held between 13 and 26 January 1991. Conceived by promoter Barry Hearn, the tournament had a similar format to the Grand Slam events in tenn ...

which was first held in 1975 and organised by the

British Darts Organisation The British Darts Organisation (BDO) was a darts organisation founded on 7 January 1973 by Olly Croft. Made up of 66 member counties, it oversaw professional, semi-professional and amateur darts competitions in Britain. The BDO was a founder ...

and later the

World Darts Federation The World Darts Federation (WDF) is a sport governing body and (along with the PDC) a tournament organiser for the game of darts. It was formed in 1974 by representatives of the original fourteen founding members. Membership is open to the natio ...

. The revamp saw a change in format from

leg A leg is a weight-bearing and locomotive anatomical structure, usually having a columnar shape. During locomotion, legs function as "extensible struts". The combination of movements at all joints can be modeled as a single, linear element c ...

play to classic World Masters set play (best of 3 legs in a set), and saw preliminary rounds introduced for players outside of the top 24 and players from the PDC's affiliated tours to determine who would join the top 24 in the main competition. The 2025 event was held from 30 January to 2 February at the

in Milton Keynes, England. The defending champion was

, who won his first PDC televised title by defeating

11–7 in the 2024 final, but he was eliminated by

4–3 in the quarter-finals.

Format

All matches were played as straight in (player begins scoring with their first throw no matter what section is hit), double out (a segment on the outer ring or the

bullseye Bullseye or Bull's Eye may refer to: Symbols * ◎ (Unicode U+25CE BULLSEYE), in the Geometric Shapes Unicode block * (Unicode U+0298 LATIN LETTER BILABIAL CLICK), the phonetic symbol for bilabial click Animals and plants * Bull's Eye, ''Euryo ...

), requiring the players to score 501 points to win a

, finishing on a double. The matches were played in set format, with a minimum of two sets required to win a match. All sets were played to the best of three legs.

Prize money

The prize money for the tournament was £500,000 in total. The winner's prize money was £100,000.

Qualifiers

The World Masters featured the top 24 players in the

PDC Order of Merit The PDC Order of Merit is a world ranking system used by one of the darts organisations, the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Following the 2007 PDC World Darts Championship it superseded a world ranking system based on points being awarded fo ...

after the

2025 PDC World Darts Championship The PDC World Darts Championship, known for sponsorship purposes as the Cazoo World Darts Championship, organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), is a World Professional Darts Championship held annually in the sport of darts. The ...

automatically qualifying for the first round, while the 2025 Tour Card Holders ranked outside the top 24 competed in preliminary rounds held on 29 January 2025 alongside players from affiliated tours to determine the last eight players in the main field. The top sixteen players on the Order of Merit were seeded for the tournament. The list of participants was as follows: :Seeded Players # (champion) # ''(quarter-finals)'' # # ''(first round)'' # ''(quarter-finals)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(runner-up)'' # ''(quarter-finals)'' # ''(second round)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(quarter-finals)'' # ''(second round)'' # ''(semi-finals)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(second round)'' # ''(second round)'' :Order of Merit Qualifiers # ''(first round)'' # # ''(second round)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(first round)'' :Preliminary Round Qualifiers # ''(first round)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(first round)'' # ''(first round)'' # # #

Preliminary rounds

The preliminary rounds began with a group stage, with one seeded player per group (the players ranked 57–88 were seeded). The winner of each group progressed to the Last 64 where they faced players ranked 25–56. The eight winners of the Last 16 matches qualified for the main tournament. All matches were played to the best of three sets. The knockout phase results are shown below.

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Schedule

{, class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" , + Afternoon session (13:00

GMT Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...

) ! width="2%" , Match no. ! width="2%" , Round ! width="15%" , Player 1 ! width="5%" , Score ! width="15%" , Player 2 ! width="3%" , Set 1 ! width="3%" , Set 2 ! width="3%" , Set 3 ! width="3%" , Set 4 ! width="3%" , Set 5 ! width="3%" , Set 6 ! width="3%" , Set 7 , - , - style=text-align:center; , 25 , , rowspan=4, QF , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , colspan=2 , - style=text-align:center; , 26 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - style=text-align:center; , 27 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - style=text-align:center; , 28 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , colspan=2 , - {, class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" , + Evening session (19:00

) ! width="2%" , Match no. ! width="2%" , Round ! width="15%" , Player 1 ! width="5%" , Score ! width="15%" , Player 2 ! width="3%" , Set 1 ! width="3%" , Set 2 ! width="3%" , Set 3 ! width="3%" , Set 4 ! width="3%" , Set 5 ! width="3%" , Set 6 ! width="3%" , Set 7 ! width="3%" , Set 8 ! width="3%" , Set 9 ! width="3%" , Set 10 ! width="3%" , Set 11 , - , - style=text-align:center; , 29 , , rowspan=2, SF , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , colspan=4 , - style=text-align:center; , 30 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , colspan=4 , - style=text-align:center; , 31 , , F , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Main draw

The draw for the televised stages was made on 21 January.

Highest averages

This table shows all averages over 100 achieved by players throughout the tournament. For players with multiple high averages, this is indicated by the number in brackets. The three-dart average is the most cited statistic in darts matches as it gives a rough estimate of a player's form. For comparison with previous years, see the highest ever recorded averages in the

. {, class ="wikitable sortable" , - , colspan="5" style="text-align:center;", World Masters Main Draw , - ! Player ! Round ! Average ! Opponent ! Result , - , , 1 , 112.77 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;", Won , - , , QF , 108.50 , , style="background:pink;" , Lost , - , (2) , 2 , 105.47 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;", Won , - , , 1 , 105.05 , , style="background:pink;" , Lost , - , (3) , 1 , 104.33 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;", Won , - , , QF , 104.24 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , (2) , QF , 103.96 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;", Won , - , , 1 , 103.77 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 1 , 103.19 , , style="background:pink;" , Lost , - , , 1 , 102.43 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 1 , 101.28 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 1 , 101.28 , , style="background:pink;" , Lost , - , , QF , 101.28 , , style="background:pink;" , Lost , - , (2) , F , 100.42 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , (2) , QF , 100.35 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 1 , 100.03 , , style="background:pink;" , Lost The preliminary draw had 129 players participate. 16 different players achieved over 100 on three-dart average during the preliminaries. The preliminaries were only available to watch on PDCTV, which makes these averages non-televised. {, class="wikitable sortable" , - , colspan="5" style="text-align:center;" , World Masters Preliminary Draw , - ! Player ! Round ! Average ! Opponent ! Result , - , , , 117.88 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 1 , 110.57 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 3 , 106.16 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 2 , 106.01 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , GS , rowspan="2" , 103.66 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , GS , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , GS , 102.49 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 1 , 101.90 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 1 , 101.63 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , GS , 101.13 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 3 , 100.87 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 1 , 100.76 , , style="background:pink;" , Loss , - , (2) , 2 , 100.71 , , style="background:pink;" , Loss , - , , GS , rowspan="3" , 100.20 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , GS , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , GS , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won , - , , 2 , 100.19 , , style="background:#CCFFCC;" , Won

Media coverage

The main tournament was broadcast on

in the United Kingdom,

DAZN DAZN ( "da zone") is a global sports entertainment platform. Different to traditional linear and satellite broadcasting, DAZN is an over-the-top (OTT) streaming service meaning that it is delivered directly to viewers via the internet. The ...

in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,

Viaplay Viaplay is a streaming service owned by Viaplay Group which is based in Stockholm. History Originally owned by Modern Times Group, it was launched in May 2007 as Viasat On Demand. It was rebranded as Viaplay in 2011. Viaplay released its first ...

in the Netherlands, Iceland and Scandinavia,

VTM2 VTM 2 (formerly Q2) is a Belgian television channel owned by the commercial broadcasting company DPG Media. History The channel was originally known as Kanaal 2. However, it has undergone several rebrandings over the years. At launch in 1995, th ...

in Belgium, FanDuel in the United States, Prago Sport in Hungary, and

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

in Australia. The preliminary round was offered on the PDC.TV live streaming platform.

References

{{2025 in PDC darts Masters

Masters (darts) The Masters (also known as the Cazoo Masters for sponsorship purposes) is a non-ranking PDC darts tournament which features the top 24 darts players according to the PDC Order of Merit as of 2021. History The inaugural tournament, held in 2013, ...

Masters (darts)

Sports competitions in Milton Keynes 2020s in Buckinghamshire