The 2024 Machineseeker European Championship concluded on Sunday evening as long-odds winner (250/1) Ritchie Edhouse secured his first PDC major title.
An emphatic 11-3 win over Jermaine Wattimena made Edhouse one of the tournament’s greatest ‘surprise’ winners. Seeded 20th going into the tournament, only Ross Smith who won it in 2022 did so with a higher seeded position of 27th.
It’s fair to say the European Championship provided some great moments for darts fans as we’re right into the business end of the darts calendar now.
The World Grand Prix and European Championship are now going to be followed up with the Players Championship Finals, Grand Slam of Darts and the World Darts Championship to see the season out.
The last two tournaments played have raised some interesting questions, so in this article we take a quick look at what the European Championship tells us moving forward.
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Anyone Can Win A Major
Two major tournaments in October each had a winner that was ranked outside of the top 32 in the PDC Order of Merit going into the tournament.
Mike De Decker won the World Grand Prix beating clear favourite and world number 1 Luke Humphries in the final.
While that was a great underdog story for fans, the European Championship would go a step further.
The semi-finals participants had a combined average ranking of 32.
The average ranking of the four semifinalists of the European Championship is 32.#Darts I #ECDarts24 pic.twitter.com/IwhM8BlCsl
— TheRedBit 🔴 (@TheRedBit180) October 27, 2024
Noppert was the only player inside the top 16 to reach the semi-finals.
In multiple interviews, players were saying that Mike De Decker has inspired the lower ranked players and given hope that they can repeat his success.
There is always going to be a surprise win in a PDC major like when Andrew Gilding won the UK Open out of nowhere but to have two heavily outside odds players do it in the same month 🤯
Could this be the start of a new era where anyone can genuinely go on to win a major?
It’s giving the same vibes as the 4-minute mile first being achieved followed by an avalanche of people to do the same…
Luke Littler’s Ranking Keeps Leading to Early Tournament Exits
In 2024, Luke Littler has to feature in any conversation. The 17 year old has had a meteoric rise in darts since reaching the World Darts Championship final aged just 16 at the start of the year.
He’s proven to not be a one trick pony and in his debut year, he’s won the Premier League, World Series of Darts Finals and several titles along the way.
See more – Luke Littler tops Premier League table (player age analysis)
There is one issue that has become apparent though and that is the fact that he keeps coming into major tournaments outside of the top 16 seeding positions.
Littler has only had 10 months worth of prize money and while he has earned a substantial sum in that period of time, the PDC Order of Merit runs over a 24-month period.
At the time of writing he is 18th and has been in the 20’s for most of the year. This means for each ranked major tournament, he has been getting drawn against a top seeded player.
With his ability, this has been more of an issue for the players having to be drawn against him, however, in the last three ranked majors he has suffered first round exits in all of them.
At the World Matchplay, Michael van Gerwen beat him, at the World Grand Prix he would lose to Rob Cross and last week he was taken out by Gilding.
In the European Championship it was the reverse and he was actually the third seed so we can discount that one.
Still, three first round exits will definitely remove some of the fear factor of drawing against him moving forward.
Michael Smith’s Ranking Position Is in Serious Trouble
Two years ago, Michael Smith was runner-up in the European Championship before going on to win the Grand Slam of Darts and 2023 World Darts Championship.
In the process he earned over £700k from those tournaments and shot up to first in the PDC Order of Merit.
Since then it’s been a downward spiral for Smith. He’s admitted to basically ‘taking a year off’ after winning the World Championship as he would have very few deep tournament runs in 2023.
After winning the World Cup of Darts this year, Smith said the pressure was now off after finally winning a title for his sponsor Shot Darts.
Going into the back end of this season though, Smith is defending so much money that he could easily fall out of the top 16 and will be closer to the top 32 end of the rankings!
He said last week this didn’t bother him and it would be a fresh start to get back to his best but there’s no doubt he has a lot to play for these next few months…
See also – “You can’t take 22 and 23 away from me” – Michael Smith on defending his ranking money
Form on the ProTour Is Leading to Success on the Big Stage
If you follow the Players Championship events on the PDC ProTour, you’ll know that they throw up some surprising upsets on a regular basis.
128 participants compete in a quickfire, day-long tournament away from live audiences or big cameras. Though they are still streamed by the PDC so not completely closed door events.
Almost every elite player mentions how hard it is to do well in these tournaments. From 28 tournaments so far this year there have been 20 different winners.
Gary Anderson (who’s won two this year) said the standard on the ProTour is incredibly high and that any of the field are now good players.
In August, Mike De Decker won PC17 before going on to lift his first major title and at PC26 Ritchie Edhouse registered a staggering 120 average in a 6-0 win against an opponent who averaged 105.
He would also go on to win his first major title.
The standard seems to be going up all the time and if these players performing well on the floor events can bring that level to the stages – which is something few have been able to do in the past – then it might be worth following some of the lesser names on the Tour so see if this is now a growing trend.
Humphries Is a Machine, but He’s Beatable – And Players Know It!
Luke Humphries is giving an aura of domination that we’ve not seen since Phil Taylor or Michael van Gerwen.
Over the last several years, no one has been able to dominate a season of darts until now.
Humphries won the World Grand Prix in 2023 and that kickstarted an unexpected run that would see him win five major titles (including the World Championship) and reach three other finals.
Cool Hand has been just that, calmly going about dominating the darts scene for the past 12-month and it’s even something that he acknowledged going into the 2024 World Grand Prix – see more here.
Darts players have admitted that he’s a machine. Ryan Searle said being ranked 16th is an awful position because you’re then drawn against Humphires. Ritchie Edhouse also said the players know he is great.
However, after losing to Mike De Decker in the Grand Prix, some attitudes have changed.
While he has been dominant, players are now saying he can be beat and that has given them renewed confidence. Earlier in the European Championship, Edhouse even said to Humphries:
“You’re not a machine, I thought you were.”
Of all the players to quote that, the eventual winner makes it more meaningful. In the past, players believed they couldn’t beat Phil Taylor which is why he could dominate for so long.
If Humphries’ year of dominance hasn’t instilled that same level of fear then it will be hard for him to keep it going in the future.
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