Luke Littler successfully retained his UK Open title last night after beating James Wade 11-7 in the final to become the 2026 UK Open champion.
In a repeat of the 2025 UK Open final, Luke Littler would once again face James Wade and would once again secure victory over The Machine.
The win had an extra story behind it as beating Wade in the final meant that Littler now moves ahead of James Wade in the all-time major titles list having won 12 PDC major titles, to Wade’s 11.
🇳🇱 Raymond van Barneveld
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) March 8, 2026
🏴 Phil Taylor
🇳🇱 Michael van Gerwen
🏴 Luke Littler
Luke Littler joins an exclusive group of players to win back-to-back UK Open titles! 🏆☢️ pic.twitter.com/PIb6Xb3z2Z
The UK Open is one of the biggest and most participated in tournaments on the PDC darts calendar.
It’s a tournament that often provides upsets and underdog runs that can shake up the rankings, though this year the ranking changes on the PDC Order of Merit have not been too drastic..
With that said, there have been a few notable changes to the rankings. Below we take a look at the biggest winners and losers in darts rankings following the 2026 UK Open.
SEE MORE ON DECENT DARTS
👉 Darts players with the most major titles in PDC history [ranked]
👉 “I say it every year” – Michael van Gerwen believes PDC ranking system needs to change
Order of Merit Changes: Losers
Gary Anderson: Down 3 Places
Besides finishing runner up in the 2010 UK Open and winning the 2018 UK Open, Gary Anderson has never made it to the quarter-final stage of the UK Open outside of those above mentioned runs.
A 10-6 win over Dirk van Duijvenbode with a 107.42 average and 10-7 win over Martin Schindler with a 105.80 average had the Scotsman looking to be in great form during the earlier rounds of the 2026 UK Open.
A semi-final run at the 2026 World Championship showed that Anderson is still a big threat in major tournaments but he would come up against Luke Littler in the sixth round.
Anderson couldn’t bring the same early-tournament performance to his match against the eventual tournament winner and would lose 5-10.
Due to players around him in the rankings making deep tournament runs, Anderson has fallen 3 places to sit 10th in the rankings overall.
He isn’t defending any major prize money until the Grand Slam of Darts later in the year so a few good runs at a major tournament before then should see Anderson stay in and around the top 10 for the foreseeable future.
Ricky Evans: Down 5 Places
Ricky Evans best major tournament finish to date came at the 2024 UK Open where he reached the semi-finals stage. As a result, Evans was defending the £30,000 in prize money earned this year.
A fourth round exit to Krzysztof Ratajski (eventual quarter-finalist) meant that Evans would secure £3,000 in prize money, just 10% of his 2024 haul and as a result Evans faced the one of the largest ranking drop of any top 100 player over the weekend.
Down to 46th in the rankings, Evans is now £132k in prize money away from a top 32 place, something he looked to be pushing towards over the previous year.
Dimitri Van den Bergh: Down 11 Places
Dimitri Van den Bergh came into this tournament out of form, lacking match practice and defending a huge £110,000 in prize money following his win in the 2024 UK Open.
A two-time major title winner, The Dreammaker made the decision in 2025 to take the majority of the year away from the oche citing mental health issues.
This has seen him drop from a ranking position just outside the top 10 in early 2025 to 26th going into the 2026 UK Open. He then suffered the worst case scenario losing in the fourth round 4-10 to an inform Danny Noppert.
This loss has seen him tumble 11 places in the rankings and drop outside the top 32 to 37th in the rankings.
It could quickly get worse for the Belgian who faces the serious scenario of losing his Tour Card this year. In 2024 he also reached the quarter-finals of the World Matchplay and semi-finals of the World Grand Prix.
Both tournaments he is currently not qualified for in the 2026 editions and based on his ranking position it could be very difficult for him to qualify at this stage…
It’s an unfortunate scenario. He has divided opinion over the years between darts fans but has been one of the more entertaining and talented players on this Tour in the 2020’s era.
Order of Merit Changes: Winners
Josh Rock: Up 1 Place
Josh Rock came into the 2026 UK Open in mixed form.
Having had a standout year in 2025 where he won the World Cup of Darts and also reached the semi-final of the UK Open and World Matchplay, Rocky broke into the top 10 in rankings and earned a place at the 2026 Premier League Darts.
Unfortunately, Rock is yet to win a match in the Premier League and sits bottom of the table on zero points.
Though he did manage an impressive nine-darter in front of his home fans for Night 4 in Belfast.
For the second consecutive year though he was able to perform in Minehead and once again reached the semi-finals.
After leading Luke Littler 5-1, he looked set to make his first PDC major ranking final but once again Luke Littler found a way to win coming from behind.
As a result, Rock moved up a place in the rankings to 8th overall.
See also – Josh Rock believes he isn’t ‘too far’ away from winning a PDC major ranking title
Gerwyn Price: Up 1 Place
Gerwyn Price is a two-time UK Open runner-up and made it to a consecutive semi-final this weekend after also reaching the semi-final of the 2026 Winmau World Masters.
After a run of bad form in 2024 where Price never made it as far as the quarter-final stage in a major tournament and was considering retirement, he bounced back in 2025 with several semi-final runs and securing titles on the ProTour.
Due to such a bad run in 2024, Price is actually defending very little in terms of prize money this year and can therefore go into tournaments with less pressure than some of the other players around him.
This semi-final finish has Price also move up a single place following behind Josh Rock to 9th place in the rankings.
There is just less than £50k separating fellow Welshman Jonny Clayton in 5th from Gary Anderson in 10th.
A few more deep tournament runs or even a major title this year could see Price jump up the rankings and push for the top 4.
James Wade: Up 2 Places
Showing remarkable consistency into his 23rd year as a professional darts player, James Wade made it to a second consecutive UK Open final.
The Machine made his first major tournament final in 2006 at the World Matchplay and a couple of decades later he is still making major finals!
The 2025 UK Open final kickstarted a return to form for Wade. Just pushing the top 16 in 2024, his latest runner-up finish which secured £60,000 in prize money has seen Wade rise 2 places in the rankings to 6th overall.
At just over £70k away from Michael van Gerwen in 4th, there is a realistic possibility that Wade could make a push for top 4 in the rankings this year.
Wade had to beat former world champions Michael van Gerwen, Rob Cross, and Gerwyn Price on route to the final, though, admits he ran out of steam against Luke Littler in the final.
Luke Littler: Unchanged
His ranking position remains unchanged but after retaining his UK Open title, Luke Littler has further extended his lead at the top of the PDC Order of Merit ranking table.
The 2026 UK Open was a tournament where Luke Littler never seemed to reach his top gear, yet also didn’t look likely to lose a match besides from the slow start against Josh Rock mentioned earlier.
James Wade had back-to-back 105 averages, Littler’s highest tournament average was 104.47 in the semi-final but it was a case once again that no one could replicate these performances when coming up against the world number one.
LITTLER GOES BACK-TO-BACK! ☢️🏆
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) March 8, 2026
Luke Littler retains the Ladbrokes UK Open title!
The world number one defeats James Wade for a second straight year to triumph in Minehead!
Live Scores & Streaming 📲 https://t.co/gFQK4rQ2wU#UKOpenDarts | Final pic.twitter.com/xEqJzHpMjQ
The £120,000 in winning prize money sees ‘The Nuke’ with a 2-year earning tally of £2,961,000.
After becoming the first player to pass £2m in 2-year earnings in January, Littler is already close to reaching the £3m milestone just a few months later!
Luke Humphries in 2nd is over £1.7m away from Littler and displacing him at the top of the rankings seems very unlikely for the foreseeable future for any player to achieve.
He currently holds all the major ranking titles except for the European Championship, the only major ranking title he is yet to add to his collection.
Order of Merit Changes: Noteworthy
Krzysztof Ratajski was the lowest ranked player to make the quarter-finals, though the £20,000 in prize money was enough to see The Polish Eagle rise just a single place to 26th in the rankings.
There was very little movement in rankings between the top 16 and 32. Several players moved up just a single place and almost all came as a result of Dimitri Van den Bergh falling 11 places.
Peter Wright who has admitted he is struggling managed to move back to a top 32 place after reaching the fifth round while fellow struggling player Michael Smith kept ahead of him in 31st by also making the fifth round.
An early exit in the fourth round for Gian van Veen (losing 7-10 against Rob Cross) meant a missed opportunity for the 3rd ranked player who is looking to reach the £1m mark in 2-year earnings and also put more distance between himself and fellow countryman Michael van Gerwen.
MVG will also be disappointed as the sixth round loss to James Wade means that all players ranked 5-10 are closer to MVG than he is to 3rd place.
After well over a decade ranked 1-3 in the world, MVG is going to have to push just to maintain his current position throughout 2026 and could well face the possibility of further drops if he can’t come up with some deep tournament runs.
The updated ranking position for the top 32 in the world can be found below:
| Rank | Player | Prize Money |
| 1 | Luke Littler | £2,961,000 |
| 2 | Luke Humphries | £1,206,500 |
| 3 | Gian van Veen | £943,250 |
| 4 | Michael van Gerwen | £710,250 |
| 5 | Jonny Clayton | £649,000 |
| 6 | James Wade | £637,250 |
| 7 | Stephen Bunting | £615,250 |
| 8 | Josh Rock | £611,250 |
| 9 | Gerwyn Price | £602,750 |
| 10 | Gary Anderson | £600,250 |
| 11 | Danny Noppert | £589,000 |
| 12 | Ryan Searle | £550,250 |
| 13 | Chris Dobey | £542,250 |
| 14 | Ross Smith | £484,500 |
| 15 | Nathan Aspinall | £481,250 |
| 16 | Martin Schindler | £467,250 |
| 17 | Jermaine Wattimena | £433,000 |
| 18 | Mike De Decker | £423,250 |
| 19 | Damon Heta | £404,750 |
| 20 | Rob Cross | £399,250 |
| 21 | Luke Woodhouse | £393,750 |
| 22 | Dave Chisnall | £375,500 |
| 23 | Daryl Gurney | £371,750 |
| 24 | Wessel Nijman | £367,250 |
| 25 | Ryan Joyce | £352,750 |
| 26 | Krzysztof Ratajski | £349,500 |
| 27 | Ritchie Edhouse | £334,000 |
| 28 | Cameron Menzies | £328,750 |
| 29 | Dirk van Duijvenbode | £324,250 |
| 30 | Andrew Gilding | £315,500 |
| 31 | Michael Smith | £314,250 |
| 32 | Peter Wright | £294,750 |
Read Next
➡️ 7 darts players who should have won more [ranked]
➡️ 10 highest earning darts players from the 2020’s [ranked]
If not already, make sure to follow Decent Darts on X or Facebook where we bring you daily darts content including news, quotes and quizzes that you won’t find on the site.