The 2025 World Matchplay kicked off this weekend and already we’ve seen some incredible performances and some surprise exits…
2024 winner Luke Humphries was unable to defend his title as Gian van Veen held his nerve in a 10-5 win over the world number one.
Nathan Aspinall who was the winner at Winter Garden in Blackpool in 2023 also suffered a first round exit at the hands of Wessel Nijman.
The dream debut for Wessel Nijman 🤩
— Sky Sports Darts (@SkySportsDarts) July 19, 2025
Nathan Aspinall is OUT of the World Matchplay 😱 pic.twitter.com/e4FTKfcNT1
The loss for Nathan Aspinall was particularly impactful. The Asp started the tournament ranked 7th in the world but had £200,000 in prize money to defend.
The first round exit saw him pick up £10,000 in prize money but ultimately lose £190,000 on his two-year earnings.
As a result, he dropped a huge 16 places in the rankings and finds himself now 23rd. He joins Michael Smith (21st) and Dimitri Van den Bergh (22nd) as a trio of players you wouldn’t expect to see outside the top 16 and certainly not the top 20….
Fans and pundits question the rankings system when you see players shoot up or drop down so drastically following a major tournament win/loss.
A player who doesn’t think they are flawed and believes a player has enough time to protect themselves from a big win coming off their rankings is Gary Anderson.
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Gary Anderson Defends Ranking PDC System
Gary Anderson is in his 17th consecutive World Matchplay and the 2018 winner opened his account this year with a 10-5 win over Luke Woodhouse.
Following the win, he spoke to talkSPORT where the conversation turned to rankings.
“You’ve seen Aspinall go from world number 7 to [outside the top 20], he’s further down than I’ve been in the last 30 years. It’s a big drop.
“I don’t watch darts, I don’t follow darts but you get told what goes on and you see a few things about the rankings and moaning that the rankings need to change.
“Until Barry [Hearn] said £1m first prize, if we take that out of the equation for the rankings and say it’s still £500,000. They moan because they drop so far but what you forget is when they win it they jump so far.
“When they win say £100k and it shoves them up to the top four in the world, they’ve got two years and a lot of tournaments to defend the £100k that they’ve just won.
“So, if they can’t do that then it’s nothing to do with the ranking system, that’s to do with the player.
“If you win it, you’ve got two years and over 100 tournaments to make up the £100k that you’ve won in a big major. If you can’t do that, well, lesson learned.”
Gary Anderson has not been to a major ranking final since 2021 and hasn’t won one since 2018, yet currently sits in 11th place on the live PDC Order of Merit ranking.
His performance on the ProTour and European Tour is one of the key reasons why he’s able to stay inside the top 16 so consistently.
See related – Gary Anderson rolls back the years with RIDICULOUS stat line at PC24
On the Euro Tour alone he’s picked up £55,000 in prize money thanks to a win at the European Darts Grand Prix and runner-up place at the Baltic Sea Darts Open.
He also has deep tournament runs but his consistency on the floor events really helps to keep him afloat.
Nathan Aspinall is admittedly an unusual circumstance as he’s someone who has won two European Tour events in 2025.
Losing the Matchplay money hit him hard in the rankings but he missed around three months of play last year due to injury and has had his struggles with dartitis to also contend with.
It will be interesting to see who the rankings are impacted once the World Championship prize money comes into play next year with £1,000,000 going to the winner.
That’s something Anderson admits will ‘mess up the rankings’.
See his full interview with talkSPORT Darts below:
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