16 players, including Max Hopp, Bradley Brooks and Lakeside Champion Shane McGuirk secured their places through to the Final Stage of their respective Qualifying Schools on Monday, after coming through Day One of Stage One, as the PDC’s Annual Qualifying School began in Milton Keynes and Kalkar, Germany.
Since the beginning of 2021, the PDC have expanded their Qualifying School into two stages, with Final Stage consisting of players who lost their Tour Cards at the end of the previous calendar year and players who finished within the top 16 on the Challenge & Development Tour Order of Merit from the previous year.
European Q School
Former PDC World Youth Champion and two-time ranking event winner, Max Hopp, took a step closer to securing a return to the PDC Pro Tour, as he reached the Final Stage of EU Q School by recording victories on the day against Sebastian Pigache, Fabian Wolter, Alexandre Antunes, Jack Anthony Sheppard, David Cameron and Patrick Tringler, with the German looking to win back his Tour Card having lost it at the end of 2022.
Elsewhere, the further seven automatic qualifiers into the Final Stage of European Q School include Hopp’s fellow countryman in Leon Weber, Dutch duo Jeroen Mioch and Gilbert Van der Meijden, as well as Belgium’s Stefaan Henderyck, Croatia’s Tomislav Rosandic, Spain’s Jorge Garcia del Pozo and Czech Republic’s Dalibor Smolik, all of which to date have yet to win a PDC Tour Card in their careers.
UK Q School
2020 PDC World Youth Champion, Bradley Brooks, headlined the eight automatic qualifiers through to the Final Stage of UK Q School, with ‘Bam Bam’ recording victories on the day against Bhav Patel, Lewis Gurney, Patrick Quinn, Dean Gallagher, Jamie Atkins and Jarred Cole, averaging over 102 in three of his six victories across the day.
Newly crowned WDF World Champion, Shane McGuirk, also secured an automatic place into
the Final Stage of UK Q School, with the Irishman recording victories against Shane Turner, Shaun Carroll, Jamie McKinnon, Jamie Durrant and Mark McGeeney, as he looks to win a PDC Tour Card for the first time in his career.
Elsewhere, the remaining six players to secure automatic qualification all come from England in the form of Tommy Morris, Jason Wilson, Adam Paxton, Pete Burgoyne, Lewis Pride and Jack Tweddell, with all six yet to hold a PDC Tour Card in their careers to date.
Should players from both Qualifying Schools not progress through to the Final Stage
automatically during the remaining two days of Stage One, spots will be given out via separate Order of Merits, by which players can build up points from winning games. 79 spots are available via the UK Order of Merit, whereas there are 80 spots available via the European Order of Merit.
This will then create a 128-player field across both Qualifying School’s, heading
into the opening day of the Final Stage, which begins on Thursday. PDC Qualifying School continues on Tuesday, in the UK and in Europe, with a further 16 players progressing through to the Final Stage, with play commencing in Europe at 12:00 CET and in the UK at 12:00 GMT. All live scores and results can be viewed at tv.dartconnect.com.
UK Qualifying School
Stage One Day One
Monday 6th January
Last 16
Tommy Morris 5-0 John Davey
Jason Wilson 5-4 Jordan-Lee Rawlings
Adam Paxton 5-3 Scott Campbell
Pete Burgoyne 5-2 Oliver Mitchell
Bradley Brooks 5-1 Jarred Cole
Lewis Pride 5-4 Trevor Burkhill
European Qualifying School
Stage One Day One
Last 16
Stefaan Henderyck 5-3 Benjamin Pratnemer
Tomislav Rosandic 5-3 Sietse Lap
G Van der Meijden 5-3 Maximilian Czerwinski
Dalibor Smolik 5-4 Matthias Ehlers
Jeroen Mioch 5-4 Paul Goyer
Jorge Garcia del Pozo 5-4 Philipp Schweder
Max Hopp 5-4 Patrick Tringler
Leon Weber 5-4 Michel Unterbuchner
—–Ends—–
Images: PDC
