After the conclusion of the 2024 Men’s and Women’s World Matchplay tournaments, as well as the recent PDC World Cup, we have new names officially confirmed to take part in November’s Grand Slam tournament in Wolverhampton.
The names confirmed so far:
Luke Humphries, by virtue of being both the reigning Grand Slam Champion as well as the reigning World Champion, will no doubt be the favourite to retain his crown.
Luke Littler, as the runner up in the 2024 PDC World Championship and 2024 Premier League winner, comes in alongside Rob Cross, who finished as the runner up in last year’s Grand Slam event.
Stephen Bunting and Dimitri Van den Bergh both qualify as the only other major winners since the previous Grand Slam, as the reigning Masters and UK Open champions respectively. Both had to beat Luke Humphries along the way to glory.
The other half of England’s winning World Cup team, Michael Smith, will look to regain his 2022 crown, in a tournament which is one of his stronger events for the Bully Boy.
Read More: Inside Luke Humphries' Record-Breaking World Matchplay Triumph
Michael Van Gerwen, because he finished as runner up at the World Matchplay, will also be making his 17th appearance at the tournament.
And the final two players to confirm their places through performance at the majors are the Austrian duo of Mensur Suljovic and Rowby-John Rodriguez, who finished runners up to England at the World Cup in Germany.
In addition to the names above, anyone who has won one of the European Tour events is also set to qualify: this entitles Martin Schindler, Gary Anderson, Josh Rock and Dave Chisnall a spot in Wolverhampton.
And two rising stars in the sport fill out the rest of the confirmed spots so far: Gian Van Veen may have narrowly lost to Luke Littler in the 2024 World Youth Championship, but he could be afforded an opportunity at redemption in the Grand Slam.
Finally, Beau Greaves, who almost caused a major shock in last year’s Grand Slam by demolishing Ricardo Pietreckzko but narrowly losing to both Nathan Aspinall and Damon Heta, will also compete as the reigning Women’s World Matchplay champion.
From here, the rest of the field will be determined through order of merit, form on the floor events, as well as the champions from various other PDC-sanctioned events such as the Challenge Tour and Asian Championship.
One can expect the likes of Chris Dobey, Jonny Clayton, Damon Heta, Ross Smith and Ryan Searle to qualify thanks to their Pro Tour performances, whilst big names like Nathan Aspinall and Peter Wright may have to do work hard to secure a high ranking in this year’s event.
By Jaspar Shepherdson
(@jasparshepmedia on X/Twitter and Instagram)
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