The U.S. Darts Masters kicks off tonight.
It's the fourth World Series of Darts event to take place in 2025.
Some who are unfamiliar with the sport might not completely understand how the World Series of Darts differs from regular tournaments.
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What's the significance of the World Series of Darts/U.S. Darts Masters
Throughout the darts calendar, there are several events that have different implications.
Typically, a majority of events are known as 'ranked events', which means the prize money players accumulate will go towards the main order of merit.
This order of merit helps players qualify for major TV tournaments and other events throughout the year, and is the most important order of merit to have good positioning in.
The World Series of Darts is described as a "series of darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation."
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They are 'unranked events', so the prize money goes to a separate order of merit.
These events take place all throughout the world.
Here are the seven countries that host World Series of Darts events in 2025:
- Bahrain
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- United States
- Poland
- Australia
- New Zealand
These tournaments are shorter than your average events, like the European Tour events, for example, because they are only two days long.
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16 players compete on day 1, consisting of 8 PDC players and 8 regional qualifiers.
More often than not, the PDC representatives move on from the round of 16 on the first day since they are matched up with region qualifiers.
Day 2 of these tournaments is when the quarterfinals, semifinals and final will take place.
After all seven 'Masters' events take place, there is a World Series Final towards the end of the year, where players are seeded based on how they played overall in the previous World Series of Darts events.
It's not make or break for the PDC representatives to play well in every World Series of Darts event, but those who are only featured in a few would like to compete, to position themselves well for the Final tournament at the end of the year.
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The U.S Darts Masters has some more hype around it since it takes place in one of the biggest cities in the world, and in the United States, where no other PDC events take place.
North America is one of the emerging regions where darts is becoming popular, so these events have had better attendance and a better atmosphere than some of the other World Series of Darts events.
Seeding on the World Series of Darts order of merit doesn't always reflect how the players have been playing at non-World Series of Darts events.
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For example, Stephen Bunting has had a lot of success at the World Series of Darts this year and enters the U.S. Darts Masters as the one seed, despite struggling a bit to this point at other tournaments.
On the other hand, world number one on the main order of merit, Luke Humphries, is tied for fifth on the World Series of Darts order of merit.
After the U.S. Darts Masters this weekend, there will be three more events before the Final that takes place in Amsterdam.
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