COMPETITION HEATS UP AS PLAYERS RACE TO QUALIFY FOR THE 44th WINMAU WORLD MASTERS

The race is on to qualify for this year’s 44^th Winmau World Masters with the world’s top players vying for one of the guaranteed seeded places. We’ll be keeping you up-to-date via our “Race to the Winmau” series of updates!

The tournament, which takes place at The Bridlington Spa from September the 25^th to 27^th, is the world’s oldest major darts tournament having started in 1974. There are 5 World Masters titles on offer in the Men’s, Ladies, Boys, Girls and disability events.

Players have until September the 11^th to earn enough ranking points to secure their place in the final stages of the tournament. The Men’s event will see 16 seeded places, with four seeds in the Ladies competition. Those players outside the seeded rankings will have to compete on the floor to win spots to compete against the seeds on one of the most famous stages in world darts.

“After the World Championships, the Winmau World Masters is the competition every player wants to win,” says Ian Flack, Sales and Marketing Director of Winmau. “The prize money is important, but what every player really covets is the right to call themselves a Winmau World Master and join the roster of legends including : Andy Fordham, Michael van Gerwen, Phil Taylor, Trina Gulliver MBE, Martin Adams, Scott Waites, Eric Bristow, John Lowe and Raymond van Barneveld.”

Current holder of the Men’s title is reigning World Champion, Glen Durrant, who leads the ranking table with a 25 point lead over Mark McGeeney (with “Duzza” helped by his victory in the Winmau BDO Wolverhampton Classic last weekend).

A day later, Scotland’s Ross Montgomery picked up the Winmau BDO Wolverhampton Open title – a win that consolidates his fifth position in the rankings and closes the gap on fourth-placed Englishman and Team Winmau player, Scott Mitchell. Runner-up Jamie Hughes earned another 20 ranking points, to keep him third and 30 points ahead of Mitchell and 43 points behind McGeeney.

The battle to reach the top 16 is incredibly close with only 28 points covering Team Winmau’s Danny Noppert who lies in 10^th and Daryl Fitton who occupies 20^th place. Team Winmau’s Andy Fordham has had a superb year and is still in with a good chance of making the top 16 from his current ranking position of 26^th (50 points off the 16^th spot).

The full Men’s ranking list can be found here: http://www.bdodarts.com/images/bdo-content/rankings/MI_Rolling_Summary.pdf

Leading the qualification race for the Ladies World Masters is England’s Deta Hedman who was runner up to Team Winmau’s Trina Gulliver MBE in last year’s event. With 426 qualifying points, she has a 19 point lead over second placed Lisa Ashton thanks to a win in the Welsh Masters earlier this month.

Fourteen points behind Lisa in third is Aileen de Graaf from The Netherlands, whose last ranking points came in June with a second place in the English Open. Winner of that event, Lorraine Winstanley, currently occupies the final seeded position in fourth with 375 points, with Russia’s Anastasia Dobromyslova just four points behind her.

Defending champion, Trina Gulliver MBE, is in seventh place (34 points off fourth) with Australian Corrine Hammond in sixth and 6 points ahead of Gulliver.

The Ladies rankings table can be found here: http://www.bdodarts.com/images/bdo-content/rankings/WI_Rolling_Summary.pdf

“Although we are only a couple of months away from the Winmau World Masters, there are plenty more ranking events in the BDO global calendar and players will be eager to earn enough points to either make sure of their top 16 position, or try and break into the automatic qualifying group,” says Ian Flack.

“This month will see qualifying points on offer at the Pacific Masters in Australia and the Japan Open. In early August the focus moves across the Atlantic for the USA Classic and then back to Europe for the Winmau Belgium Open and Winmau Belgium Masters.”

Keep posted for further updates in the Race to the Winmau series!

Tickets for the World Masters are available from: www.bridspa.com

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