Luke Littler and Luke Humphries are missing one or both days of the PDC Players Championship double-header in Leicester. PC 23 and PC 24 go ahead on July 6-7 at the Mattioli Arena, and the final event will settle the World Matchplay field.
The two-day schedule brings 128 players into action across the field, with the race for Betfred World Matchplay qualification ending in Leicester. That puts the absences into sharp focus because the last event before the cut-off is where places are decided.
Mattioli Arena field
Gian van Veen and Michael van Gerwen are among the players in the field, while several Tour Card holders are not. Jonny Clayton, Matthias Ehlers, Niko Springer, Oskar Lukasiak and Dimitri Van den Bergh are listed among those absent, and Richard Veenstra is out of PC 23 only.
The replacements include recent ADC and MODUS Super Series winners, which is how the 128-player fields stay full even with several absentees. Players Championships will commence at 1300 BST on each day, with coverage from four boards in each event streamed on PDCTV and across bookmakers’ websites worldwide.
World Matchplay race
The odd part is simple: high-profile Tour Card holders are missing from a double-header that sits at the end of qualification. Luke Littler is a World Champion and Luke Humphries is also out of one or both events, yet Leicester is still where the World Matchplay line-up will be completed after the final event.
That leaves the field with openings for the players who did enter, but it also means the final days before the cut-off carry more weight for those chasing the Betfred World Matchplay places. The names missing from Leicester will not be part of that finishing line, and the rest of the field now has the room they left behind.
