STAR DARTS PREVIEW: World Grand Prix 2026

Monday sees the start of one of the most exciting and unique events on the darting calendar, with all roads leading to Leicester for the start of the World Grand Prix, writes EMILY WALLIS.

⭐ STARSPORTS.BET WORLD GRAND PRIX OUTRIGHT MARKETS ⭐

As mentioned in my blog for the World Series Finals last week, the majors will now start coming thick and fast as we head into the most exciting time of the year.

The Grand Prix is the only major to have a double start format and is also set play, warming us up nicely for the World Championship now only just over two months away! The double start format in this tournament certainly makes for an interesting watch and can cause some interesting results if players aren’t hitting them straight away in a leg.

The Grand Prix will run for the whole of next week with the final taking place next Sunday evening. There’s no surprise in who our defending champion is, Luke Littler! It was a ‘Luke v Luke’ final last year with Littler comfortably beating Luke Humphries 6-1.

Last weekend, the World Series Finals in Amsterdam, provided plenty of surprises, the biggest being Littler’s defeat in the quarter-finals to Jonny Clayton. This has ended his hopes of a perfect run in all the majors this year, meaning he most likely won’t be at Minehead for the Players Championship Finals in October.

Although this was a big shock, Littler certainly hadn’t looked his brilliant best in the two games previous. Danny Noppert and Nathan Aspinall really pushed him and forced him to up his level, but he couldn’t find this extra gear against ‘The Ferret’, Jonny Clayton.

Could this have an impact on the Grand Prix? Potentially, he is always best when determined to break some sort of record and he was hungry for that clean sweep of majors. His doubles also just weren’t going for him in the World Series Finals, he only hit four out of 21 attempts at a double in his defeat to Jonny Clayton, obviously he’ll need to up that in Leicester next week.

However, this is a major title and he is the defending champion, there’s no doubts he’ll be going there determined to win!

So will many other players though and no dart player has more confidence than Ross Smith right now. He has been in brilliant form of late and was the player to go on and win the World Series Finals last week, he also got to the final of the European Tour in Antwerp the weekend before not long after winning the Euro Tour in Hungary last month.

The Grand Prix is an extremely hard event to qualify for featuring just the top 16 players in the World and the top 16 players on the Pro Tour Order of Merit, not already qualified so all players in the field are capable of beating each other on their day.

The last European Tour in Antwerp was the last ranking event and therefore the last chance for players to secure qualification. Players on the cusp included Sebastian Bialecki and Kim Huybrechts who ended up playing each other in the first round, you could see from this match how much qualification meant to each but it was Bialecki who came through this and after a fantastic year so far, is set to make his Grand Prix debut along with other debutants in Kevin Doets and Neils Zonneveld.

Each day, Star Sports will have prices for all matches as well as plenty of interesting boosts and specials.

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🏆 Outright

The outright market looks similar to all other major events recently with Littler the 8/11 favourite, Humphries second in at 13/2 and Gerwyn Price third at 12/1.

We then have other big names like Gian van Veen, James Wade and Michael van Gerwen next. In form Ross Smith is now seventh in the betting at 22/1.

It’s always difficult to look past Littler in the outright market but Star Sports also have a market to reach the final, where James Wade looks a decent price at 7/1 with starsports.bet.

He is also one of the most in-form players currently coming off the back of a World Series win in Australia and then winning that European Tour in Antwerp, beating Ross Smith in the final.

‘The Machine’ had a decent run in the World Series Finals, beating both Damon Heta and Wessel Nijman to reach the quarter-finals, just falling short against a good performance from Gerwyn Price in that.

He is always very good on his doubles and has won the Grand Prix twice already in 2007 and 2010, a long time ago but in the past couple of years he’s never been far away in a lot of the majors and I can see him having a nice run here.

He’ll face Joe Cullen in the first round, who he actually doesn’t have a great record against, he did win their last meeting though which was in the quarter-finals of a Players Championship event at the start of September and, overall, is in much better form than Cullen.

Should he come through that, he’ll face either Stephen Bunting or Andrew Gilding in the next round, where I would fancy his chances there too. This looks to be the nicest and most open quarter of the draw and Wade is 14/5 to win this, which certainly looks value.

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2️⃣ Quarter 2

This quarter of the draw looks extremely tricky, featuring Price, Clayton, Smith, Nijman, Rob Cross and a winner of a Players Championship this week in Cameron Menzies.

However, Ross Smith is priced at 4/1 with starsports.bet to win this, which I think is worth taking a chance on with the form he’s in, he’s a player who massively thrives on confidence and, as mentioned, this is sky high right now. He’s also a player who’s very good on his doubles which has to come into consideration too.

Cameron Menzies will be a tough opponent in the first round but Ross Smith has a favourable record against him and will be much calmer and more focused should he not get away in a leg straight away.

He would then potentially play Price who he only beat on Sunday to win his second major title. It’s a very intriguing section of the draw but Smith will fancy his chances, I’m sure.

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🎯 First Round Matches

With so much quality in the tournament, none of the first-round matches will be easy for the players and they should all make for great games.

Littler faces another Luke in Luke Woodhouse and Humphries will have to beat two-time World Grand Prix finalist, Dave Chisnall, to continue his chances of having a more positive run than he has in the last couple of majors.

Nathan Aspinall against Kevin Doets looks a good game and it will be interesting to see how Doets takes to the double start format. I do think Aspinall, who is playing well, should win and he is 4/5 with starsports.bet.

Rob Cross against Wessel Nijman should also be a good watch. Nijman is favourite which isn’t surprising after the year he is having picking up so many titles on the Pro Tour and a couple on the Euro Tour. However, he still doesn’t seem to be able to have deep runs when it comes to the major tournaments.

He made his Grand Prix debut last year where he played…Rob Cross! It wasn’t a game of great quality and went all the way to a deciding leg but Cross managed to get the job done and I think he can do the same this year.

Priced at 11/10 to win the match and go on to round 2, I think this is a more than fair price. Cross has gone under the radar recently but he’s not in bad form at all.

It should be a brilliant competition to enjoy all throughout next week, all the players will want to get positive results with plenty more major action just around the corner!

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RECOMMENDED BETS
BACK James Wade to Reach the Final 1pt at 7/1 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)

BACK James Wade 4th Quarter Winner 2pts at 14/5 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)

BACK Ross Smith 2nd Quarter Winner 1pt at 4/1 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)

BACK Rob Cross to beat Wessel Nijman 2pts at 11/10 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)

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PROFIT/LOSS (SEP 2026): +21.05 points

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