Gerwyn Price will start the defence of his PDC World Darts Championship against either Ritchie Edhouse or Peter Hudson.

The world number one and defending champion is expected to headline the opening night of Wednesday 15 December. The first round match between Edhouse and Hudson will be the opening match of the tournament, with the winner to face The Iceman later in the evening.

2020 champion and number two seed Peter Wright will face the victor of the match between Ryan Meikle and Fabian Schmutzler. Chas Barstow and John Norman Jr also square off in round one, with the winner to play three time World Champion Michael van Gerwen.

Elsewhere, stand out ties of the first round include:

  • Adrian Lewis facing Matt Campbell with the winner taking on Gary Anderson
  • Florian Hempel taking on Martin Schindler. The winner gets Dimitri Van den Bergh
  • Fallon Sherrock making her return to the Alexandra Palace against Steve Beaton. The winner faces Kim Huybrechts in round two, and the winner of that takes on Price in round three
  • Lisa Ashton playing Ron Meulenkamp, with Michael Smith awaiting the victor
  • 2007 winner Raymond van Barneveld playing Lourence Ilagan, with Rob Cross face the player who’s victorious
Gerwyn Price holding the World Darts Championship
Gerwyn Price wants to be the fourth player to successfully defend the PDC World Darts Championship. Credit: Chris Dean/PDC

2021/22 PDC World Darts Championship Draw

Section One

(1) Gerwyn Price v Ritchie Edhouse / Peter Hudson

(32) Kim Huybrechts v Steve Beaton / Fallon Sherrock

(16) Stephen Bunting v Ross Smith / Jeff Smith

(17) Dirk van Duijvenbode v Jermaine Wattimena / Boris Koltsov

(8) Jonny Clayton v Keane Barry / Royden Lam

(25) Gabriel Clemens v Lewis Williams / Toyokazu Shibata

(9) Michael Smith v Ron Meulenkamp / Lisa Ashton

(24) Glen Durrant v William O’Connor / Danny Lauby

Section Two

(4) James Wade v Maik Kuivenhoven / Ky Smith

(29) Vincent van der Voort v Adam Hunt / Boris Krcmar

(13) Joe Cullen v Ted Evetts / Jim Williams

(20) Simon Whitlock v Martijn Kleermaker / John Michael

(5) Dimitri Van den Bergh v Florian Hempel / Martin Schindler

(28) Devon Petersen v Jamie Hughes / Raymond Smith

(12) Krzysztof Ratajski v Steve Lennon / Madars Razma

(21) Mervyn King v Ryan Joyce / Roman Benecky

Section Three

(2) Peter Wright v Ryan Meikle / Fabian Schmutzler

(31) Damon Heta v Luke Woodhouse / James Wilson

(15) Ryan Searle v William Borland / Bradley Brooks

(18) Danny Noppert v Jason Heaver / Juan Francisco Rodriguez

(7) Jose De Sousa v Jason Lowe / Daniel Larsson

(26) Mensur Suljovic v Alan Soutar / Diogo Portela

(10) Nathan Aspinall v Joe Murnan / Paul Lim

(23) Brendan Dolan v Callan Rydz / Yuki Yamada

Section Four

(3) Michael van Gerwen v Chas Barstow / John Norman Jr

(30) Chris Dobey v Rusty-Jake Rodriguez / Ben Robb

(14) Dave Chisnall v Darius Labanauskas / Mike De Decker

(19) Luke Humphries v Rowby-John Rodriguez / Nick Kenny

(6) Gary Anderson v Adrian Lewis / Matt Campbell

(27) Ian White v Scott Mitchell / Chris Landman

(11) Rob Cross v Raymond van Barneveld / Lourence Ilagan

(22) Daryl Gurney v Ricky Evans / Nitin Kumar

How does the World Darts Championship draw work?

The draw for the 2021/22 PDC World Darts Championship sees the top 32 players on the PDC Order of Merit qualify for round two automatically. They make up the 32 seeds for the event.

The top 32 players on the Pro Tour Order of Merit, who are not already on the main Order of Merit, qualify for round one, as do 32 international qualifiers. The Pro Tour players and the qualifiers play each other to take on a seed in round two.

The seeded player then faces the winner of a round one game. Whoever wins that moves onto round three, where 32 players remain. If all the seeds qualify, then it would be 1 v 32, 2 v 31, and so on.

The semi finals will be the winner of section one v winner of section two. The winners of sections three and four will play in the other semi final.

The two semi final winners will play in the final, with the victor being crowned the World Darts Champion.

What’s the schedule?

You can view the schedule on our website.

What’s the prize money?

Once again, there will be £2.5 million in prize money up for grabs. Here’s how it’s broken down:

Winner – £500,000

Runner Up – £200,000

Semi Finals – £100,000

Quarter Finals – £50,000

Fourth Round – £35,000

Third Round – £25,000

Second Round – £15,000

First Round – £7,500

Can I still get tickets?

Tickets for most sessions for the 2021/22 World Darts Championship have sold out.

However, there are still some limited tickets left for some sessions.

You can find more information on the PDC website.