2026 PDC Darts World Championship quarterfinals previews and predictions: A Luke headed home?

Alex Walsh

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2026 PDC Darts World Championship quarterfinals previews and predictions: A Luke headed home? image

2026 kicks off with a great slate of games for the quarterfinal round of the 2026 PDC Darts World Championship.

Eight players will look to survive another day by advancing to the semifinal round, which takes place on Friday.

Several quarterfinal matches will be close calls, so it's time to break down what you can expect from each match and who is most likely to go through to the next round.

Predicting the quarterfinal round winners at the 2026 PDC Darts WC

Here are my previews/predictions for all four games.

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(1) Luke Littler vs. Krzysztof Ratajski

Winner: Luke Littler, 5-2

To few people's surprise, Luke Littler has been dominant in this year's WC so far.

Littler hadn't conceded a set until his fourth-round match against Rob Cross.

Cross nearly forced a last-set decider against Littler, but Littler came up clutch in the end to stop the run of sets from Cross.

I do believe Cross is a harder opponent for Littler than Ratajski, but Ratajski has played career-best darts in the tournament so far.

For that reason, I don't think it will be a complete blowout, but Littler has the skills to get by in sets that are decided by the small margins.

Ratajski has averaged over a 96 in three out of four games so far, and he'll need to do that again to have a shot against Littler.

Littler has averaged over 101 in three out of his four games so far, and over 106.5 in each of his last two matches.

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(2) Luke Humphries vs. (10) Gian van Veen

Winner: Gian van Veen, 5-4

Van Veen has turned into Humphries' kryptonite in recent months.

He's beaten Humphries in all four of their previous matches in 2025, including wins at the World Matchplay, European Darts Championship final and in the Players Championship Finals.

Neither player has faced a threat yet in this tournament, outside of some brief moments in matches, so this match will be the toughest task for both players in this tournament so far.

Humphries is a man on a mission, as he said in November that he would win the WC, but van Veen has just as much motivation to win a WC.

Van Veen is set to play the longest-formatted match in his career, something that he won't have nearly as much experience with as Humphries does.

I still like van Veen's odds, though, as he will be confident against Humphries with past success playing him throughout 2025.

If van Veen were to win, it would likely be a match that goes 8-9 sets.

Even though van Veen is the 10th seed, he's set to finish the tournament 5th on the Main OoM, with the potential to be even higher.

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(20) Ryan Searle vs. (5) Jonny Clayton

Winner: Ryan Searle, 5-3

Ryan Searle has won all 14 sets in his 2026 WC campaign so far.

Searle is set to play in one of the biggest matches of his career, as he can move into the top 8 in the world rankings with a win.

Clayton is not an easy opponent by any means, so Searle will need to keep his foot on the gas the entire match, as he has in his four previous matches.

Clayton was very fortunate to beat Andreas Harrysson in the fourth round, as he was very close to going down 1-3 in sets.

Clayton has endured a lot of pressure in matches so far, and I think Searle will be a whole new animal that Clayton will have to learn to deal with.

Searle has had back-to-back matches with averages over 100.5 and has been over 98.5 in his last three matches.

Clayton will certainly be capable of staying in this match, but he's been too erratic in this tournament for me to believe he'll be able to make a big enough jump to take down Searle in this contest.

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(14) Gary Anderson vs. Justin Hood

Winner: Gary Anderson, 5-4

Both players have been unbelievable all tournament long.

If they can keep pace with the scoring they've produced to this point, we should see an epic shootout that could go all the way.

As cool as it would be to see Hood make the semifinals on debut, it's hard to see him prevailing in the end over an in-form legend like Anderson.

Both players have already taken down quality opponents and have won last-set thrillers, so they'll be confident in those moments if they happen, since they've been battle-tested.

This will be another match decided by fine margins, like an extra emphasis on hitting timely doubles in last-leg deciders and not having trebleless visits, for example.

It wouldn't be a huge shock to see Hood win, since the fine margins are unpredictable, but there's a lot from Anderson that I've liked that shows me he's ready to go another step further, as he has done in past years.