By Lorenzo Di-Mauro Hayes
Three Australians will walk onto the Alexandra Palace stage for the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship. They will be among the ninety-six players who will take part in, what might be due to the Luke Littler effect, the biggest darts tournament of all time. Here is a rundown on those Australians and what they might do over the festive period, which you can watch on Kayo and Fox Sports.
Joe Comito – DPA tour qualifier
Taking part in the first match of the event, Comito qualified by finishing first on the Dartplayers Australia (DPA) tour order of merit. Comito only took up the game of darts at the age of 21 and has slowly made his way through the ranks in the Australian tour. He first qualified for a PDC TV event for the 2022 Queensland Darts Masters, as part of the PDC World Series, but he lost in the first round to Michael Smith 6-0 in legs. He then qualified for 2023 New South Wales Darts Masters, but he again lost 6-0 in legs, this time to Australian number 1 Damon Heta. He qualified for 2024 Australian Darts Masters, where he was drawn to face reigning World Champion and world number 1 Luke Humphries, could he just win a leg? He went down 2-0 but after watching Humphries miss three of darts at double, Comito hit double 20 with the last dart in hand, for an 18-dart break of throw, a checkout acknowledged by his opponent with a high-five and a hug. Comito would go down 6-1 in legs, but the confidence has only grown.
After winning only one event last year, Comito has taken home three DPA tour titles and secured his spot at the sport’s flagship event. His reward is to play the first match of the tournament against Frenchmen Thibault Tricole, who caused an upset with a victory at the recent Players Championship Finals with a first-round win over 2021 world champion Gerwyn Price. The reason he is playing first is because the winner of that match will play in the fourth and final game of the first evening. By tradition, that match features the defending champion, so should Comito win he’ll be back that night for a rematch with Humphries of their previous encounter in Wollongong in August.
Gordon Mathers – Oceanic Masters qualifier
Qualifying through his victory at the Oceanic Masters, Mathers is set to make his fourth appearance at Alexandra Palace. Mathers, in a similar way to Comito this year, finished top of the DPA tour order of merit in 2017, which meant he qualified for 2018 World Championship where he lost a preliminary round game against Japanese qualifier Seigo Asada, 2-1 in sets. Later that year, Mathers qualified for the Brisbane Darts Masters, he lost in the first round to Raymond van Barneveld 6-1 in legs. After failing to win a tour card at 2020 Q-school, Mathers went back to the top of DPA tour, qualifying for the World Championships again. At the 2021 edition, he lost out in the first round to German Max Hopp, 3-0 in sets. Mathers went back to Q-school and by finishing 8th in UK Q-school order of merit, he had earned a two-year tour card. Unfortunately for Mathers, he didn’t qualify for any additional event outside of the Players Championship events and the UK Open. On his UK Open debut, he lost 6-3 in legs, to former World Championship finalist Kirk Shephard.
Mathers did not do enough on the Pro Tour order of merit to qualify for the 2022 World Championship and in the last chance qualifier he lost his final round match and became the second reserve player, so he would only qualify if there were two withdrawals. Luckly, for Mathers, after African qualifier Charles Losper had to withdrawal due to visa issues and was replaced by Mike de Decker, Spanish qualifier Juan Rodriguez had to pull out after testing positive to COVID, meaning Mathers was in. He would go down in his most recent World Championship match 3-1 in sets, to Jason Heaver. The only other thing of note, Mathers did in 2022, was playing in the UK Open, he qualified automatically for the second round but lost to Austrian Rowby-John Rodriguez. He failed to qualify for 2023 World Championship and as he sat 87th in the order of merit after that event, he lost his card. Since March, Mathers has gone through a radical transformation, losing 50 kilograms. After the death of his father due to heart failure, Mathers who had touched 160 kilograms, decided to do something about his weight. He has got himself down to 110 kilograms, and he has also found success on the dartboard again. The 43-year-old plowed through the field to win the Oceanic Masters. He had a 85.62 three-dart average throughout the whole event, easily the best and averaging 85.27 Mathers defeated Harley Kemp by 3-1 in sets. Mathers will play on the third match of the sole evening session on 18th December, which will be the morning of 19th December in Australia. His opponent is Ricky Evans, who if history is any guide will get into the spirit by wearing a Christmas inspired shirt and walk-on to ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ by Welsh singer-songwriter Shakin’ Stevens.
Damon Heta – Main Order of Merit qualifier
Likely to be the only Australian with a PDC tour card, after the World Championship ends, Heta enters the tournament ranked number 9 in the world. 2024 has had a bit of everything for ‘The Heat’. It started off the back of his best World Championship performance to date, reaching the last 16 at the previous edition. After reaching the quarterfinals at the non-ranking Masters, Heta made his first semi-final at a ranking televised event at the UK Open. But other than that, Heta has been a bit cold at TV events, being knocked out in the first round at World Matchplay, World Grand Prix (where he missed match darts in a loss to eventual champion Mike de Decker) and at the European Championship. Heta didn’t even qualify for the Grand Slam of Darts, a tournament he where he reached the last eight in 2023. Heta has still seen success away from the TV, picking up titles on the floor at Players Championship 4 and 18. He also showed great form on the floor, reaching the quarter-final stage in three of the last four Players Championship events. On the European tour, he reached the final eight at European Darts Grand Prix and German Darts Championship and the last four at European Darts Open. The closest he has got to a title came by reaching the final of the New Zealand world series event where he lost to Humphries.
Heta finds himself in a tricky part of the bracket. As a seed he is placed directly in the second round and earns a guaranteed £15,000 and will play either England’s Connor Scutt or New Zealand’s Ben Robb. Heta is friends of both and joked on his X (formally Twitter) account “Can we do the draw again please?”. That match will take place, Australian time on the morning of December 22nd, right after Luke Littler plays his second-round match. Should he win that his likely third round opponent is the aforementioned World Grand Prix champion Mike de Decker and could very well decide which of them earns a wildcard into the 2025 edition of the Premier League Darts. Should he survive that, he likely then must play Stephen Bunting, the 2024 Masters champion and former Lakeside World Champion. Should he win that game he will probably play the current world number one and regaining world champion Humphries and while we are on this hypothetical, his likely semi-final opponent would be Littler, and that’s just to get to the final.
Fair to say of Heta or indeed one of the other Aussies lifts the Sid Waddell trophy on the morning of January 4th Australian time, they will have had the biggest couple of weeks of their lives.
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