The PDC has announced the 32 players who have been granted direct entry to the Flanders Darts Trophy. For the Euro Tour tournaments, the top 16 of the world rankings and the top 16 of the Pro Tour Order of Merit are automatically placed.
Cross has absented himself from the Flanders Darts Trophy, while Michael Smith will also not travel to Belgium. The top-16 seed list in Antwerp includes Luke Humphries, Dave Chisnall, Gary Anderson, Gerwyn Price, Damon Heta, Danny Noppert, Josh Rock, Stephen Bunting, Ryan Searle, Ross Smith, Martin Schindler, Chris Dobey, Ricardo Pietreczko, Luke Littler, Gian van Veen and Michael van Gerwen.
Ryan Joyce, Daryl Gurney, Joe Cullen, Brendan Dolan, Luke Woodhouse, Jonny Clayton, Raymond van Barneveld, Krzysztof Ratajski, James Wade, Ritchie Edhouse, Andrew Gilding, Peter Wright, Dimitri Van den Bergh, Nathan Aspinall, Dirk van Duijvenbode and Callan Rydz will also start the Flanders Darts Trophy in the first round.
The Tour Card qualifying tournament for the Flanders Darts Trophy did not yield any additional Belgian participants. However, four Belgian qualifiers will be added to the field of participants via the Host Nation Qualifier. This qualifying tournament is accessible to Belgian darts players without a PDC Tour Card.
In addition, our own Mike De Decker can still hope. He is the first reserve. From that position, ‘The Real Deal’ has a good chance of moving up later. As of this season, the losers of the final round of the Tour Card qualifying tournament have a chance of moving up. The ten losers of the final round are ranked based on their Pro Tour ranking. The highest ranked Pro Tour player of this ten is then the first reserve for a Euro Tour tournament.
De Decker was the second seed in the qualifying tournament. Since number one Kevin Doets did manage to qualify, De Decker is the first reserve. In the first seven Euro Tour tournaments of the season, it happened no less than six times that one of the seeded players withdrew. So there is a good chance that De Decker will come in action in front of his home crowd.
