The World Grand Prix will arrive hard on the heels of a phenomenal summer of darts. The popular unique formatted events will be running from Monday 28 September to Sunday 4 October at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester.
As usual the top 16 on the main PDC Order of Merit are locked in, among them Littler, Luke Humphries, Gian van Veen, Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton. Although as always there may be a battle for the last spot or two in that list. Jermain Wattimena for example will be eyeing a top 16 spot by then.
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The remaining 16 places are decided by the ProTour Order of Merit, and that is where the real intrigue usually lies. Last year Andrew Gilding squeezed into the final ProTour spot on £75,000. With five ranking events still to play, Dave Chisnall currently occupies that 16th position on £78,250.
The figure may look only modestly higher, yet prize money has risen sharply this season: Players Championship events are up 20 per cent to £150,000 each, while European Tour funds have increased 31 per cent to £230,000. Factoring in those rises and historical patterns, the cut-off may be expected to climb by around 20 per cent, settling near £90,000 once the field is confirmed.
The remarkable Beau Greaves sits 21st on the ProTour list (excluding the automatic main-Order qualifiers) with £66,250. To reach the projected £90,000 mark she needs roughly £23,750 from the five remaining events – two Players Championships and three European Tour appearances.
At just 22, Greaves is considered by many to be the greatest women’s player the game has seen. A three-time WDF Women’s World Champion and three-time PDC Women’s World Matchplay winner, she is currently the only woman holding a place on the PDC professional tour. She became only the second woman to earn a Tour Card outright (after Lisa Ashton in 2020) and has seized the opportunity with both hands.
Beau ‘N’ Arrow’s 2026 campaign has already rewritten the record books. Since joining the tour she has become the first woman to land a nine-dart finish on the ProTour, the first to qualify for a European Tour event, and – most significantly – the first to win a PDC ranking title, defeating Michael Smith in the Players Championship 11 final in April.
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Players Championships 27 and 28 take place on 25-26 August at the same Mattioli Arena that will stage the World Grand Prix. Prize money at each event runs from £1,250 for a last-64 exit to £15,000 for the winner. Greaves’ record across 26 Players Championship starts this year reads one title, three quarter-finals and one semi-final.
On that form she has roughly a one-in-three chance of reaching the last eight in either event, yet the £15,000-plus needed to keep her challenge alive would almost certainly demand another deep run rather than a pair of solid quarter-finals. Back-to-back last-eight appearances look the bare minimum if she is to stay in contention heading into her European Tour debut. On current trajectory qualification remains unlikely, yet after the year she has produced few would dare write her off completely.
Greaves has already secured places in all three remaining European Tour events before the cut-off: the Hungarian Darts Trophy (28-30 August), the Czech Darts Open (4-6 September) and the Flanders Darts Trophy (11-13 September). Simply taking the stage makes her the first woman ever to compete on the European Tour. Prize money there is substantially richer – £2,000 for a first-round exit rising to £35,000 for the champion.
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A title on debut would all but guarantee her World Grand Prix place. Short of that, three strong runs, ideally reaching the quarter-finals, combined with solid Players Championship returns could still push her past the £90,000 line. The key is simply avoiding first-round exits across the three weekends.
No useful markets are yet available for the Hungarian or Czech events, but based on her 20/1 price at Players Championship 13 shortly after her maiden title, a debut quote somewhere between 20/1 and 33/1 looks a realistic expectation.
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If the £23,750 target holds, Greaves has already shown she possesses the game to get there. She has beaten former world champions on the floor circuit and her belief has never wavered since that landmark Players Championship 11 victory.
The numbers demand at least one substantial run across the five events. Beau Greaves in 2026 has so far proved that every previous barrier is now in play. Can she do so again and join the World Grand Prix contenders in Leicester.
Images: PDC
