The 2026 PDC Asian Championship took place on Monday, following the conclusion of the Asian Tour over the weekend. Spots up for grabs for the World Championships, with both finalists securing their ticket to Ally Pally, as well as a place at the Grand Slam of Darts for the champion.
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PDC Asian Championship Darts 2026
(Changjiang, Hainan, China – 14 September 2026)
Entries were confirmed on the Sunday evening, with the top 52 on the Asian Tour joined by regional qualifiers to take the field to 64. The regional qualifiers consisted of:
China – Xiaochen Zong
Macau – Cheng Kam Weng
India – Nitin Kumar
Thailand – Sorawis Rodman
UAE – Hussein Mohamad
Vietnam – Hoang Khang Nguyen
Bahrain – Ared Abdulla Murad
Singapore – Chee Poh Chng
Mongolia – Bayarsaikhan Byambasugar
South Korea – ChiYong An
Combodia – Lang Lim
Indonesia – Luis Wandy
These twelve nations were joined by many players from Japan and the Philippines in the top 52, along with three players from Hong Kong, four from Malaysia and Taiwan, and two from Brunei.
Early Rounds
The action kicked off with a round robin, consisting of 16 groups of four, each with a seeded player from the top 16 of the Asian Tour Order of Merit. This saw the shock exits of second seed Motomu Sakai and sixth seed Lok Yin Lee, as well as Japanese seeded duo Yuya Fukuchi and Yuta Hayshi.
This was quickly followed by Man Lok Leung and Alexis Toylo losing in the Last 32, and Ryuta Arihara, Lourence Ilagan and Haruki Muramatsu falling in the Last 16, creating a lot of opportunities for the remaining players. It also marked the first time Ilagan wouldn’t be at a World Championship since 2018!
Quarter-Finals
The first quarter-final was between Filipino Noel Malicdem and Jenn Ming Tan. An 84.58 average saw “Gentle Giant” take a 2-0 win against the slow Malaysian, moving one win away from a first appearance at a World Championship since 2020.
The other quarter-final in the top half saw the top two Filipino’s in 2026 tackle it out, as sixth seed Paolo Nebrida got the better of third seed Christian Perez with an 89.40 average.
The bottom half had no top ten players, meaning there would be opportunities for an underdog to sneak through to the World Championship. The first quarter-final took place between Japan’s Ryusei Azemoto and the first-time title winner this weekend, Rolly Gabiana.
The match went to a deciding set, where Gabiana missed a total of TEN match darts to win, before Azemoto pinned double five to break Gabiana’s heart. Azemoto moved one win away from a third consecutive World Championship appearance.
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The second quarter-final saw the battle of the underdogs. Ranked #25 on the Asian Tour, Sonny Balagat came into the meeting as the big favourite, as he took on Macau’s Kam Weng Cheng. Cheng had previously never reached a single Semi-Final on the Asian Tour, and was ranked down in 55th, but he did the business, winning the match with a 144 checkout!
Semi-Finals & Final
The Semi-Finals then took place, with spots at the World Championships on offer to the winners. Filipino duo of Paolo Nebrida and Noel Malicdem took to the stage first and, despite a big fish from Malicdem and the even stats, it ended up being a fairly one-sided encounter. Paolo Nebrida took the win 2-0 and booked his spot in a fifth consecutive World Championship. Having beaten Jim Williams and Ross Smith in 2025 en-route to the third round, he’ll be looking to pick up more wins on his return in December.
The second Semi-Final saw a lot more drama. Ryusei Azemoto took the first set after surviving a couple of darts to lose in 3-1, before getting whitewashed in the second, with Kam Weng Cheng hitting 11 and 13 darters in back-to-back legs to seal it. The final set went all the way to a deciding leg, with both players knowing what was on the line.
Kam Weng Cheng took out 98 for a 14 darter to secure his spot at a very first World Championship, breaking new barriers for darts in Macau as the first player from his nation to do so.
Paolo Nebrida went on to complete a brilliant day with a 3-0 win in the final, securing his spot at the Grand Slam of Darts for the first time in his career.
Despite this, the story of the day is the ranked underdog Kam Weng Cheng (above) bringing Macau to the World Championships for the first time in his career!
The performances of the event came from defending champion Lourence Ilagan, averaging 103.47 and 101.55 in two of his three group stage matches.
What this means?
Paolo Nebrida and Kam Weng Cheng both qualify for the 2027 World Championships, while Nebrida also books his spot at the Grand Slam of Darts in November.
This also means that Man Lok Leung will claim the final Asian Tour spot should Motomu Sakai go on to win the Japan Tour next week, which is looking very likely.
The Asian Tour is complete for another year, not returning until January / February 2027. One of the most loved tours in the PDC, and it has certainly lived up to it’s billing this year.
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Images: PDC
