Nine darts, and the match was already won
Reyes was 4-1 up on Dekker when it arrived. DartsNews puts the perfect leg in the sixth, which makes it the kind of nine-darter that decides nothing: he was already in control of the match. Two 180s left 141 after six darts, and the 141 went down — the standard route that accounts for almost every perfect leg in the professional game, and which we break down in full in our guide to the nine-dart finish.
The PDC marked it on X with three words — “NINE-DARTER FOR REYES!” — and Sky Sports published the clip. Reyes closed the match out 6-1.
Nobody has hit more in 2026
The PDPA keeps the official register of nine-dart finishes, numbered continuously since the first one it recorded. Reyes now owns three entries for 2026: number 605 at the Austrian Darts Open in Graz, 613 at Players Championship 29 in September, and 619 on Wednesday night. Nobody else on the 2026 list has three.
That is the part worth sitting with. The register has more than 40 perfect legs for this season, thrown by everyone from Q-School hopefuls in Milton Keynes to the world champion in Blackpool. Luke Littler has one, at the World Matchplay. Luke Humphries has one, at the World Masters. Michael van Gerwen, who holds the all-time record with 30, does not appear on the 2026 list at all.
Every player with more than one, plus four selected names for comparison. Source: PDPA 9 Dart Club register, entries 579–619.
Five nine-darters, and an 11-year gap in the middle
Reyes had hit two perfect legs before this year, and both came in 2015, both at Players Championship events in Barnsley. The first of them ended oddly: he threw a nine-darter in the last 16 and lost the match 6-2 to Robert Thornton anyway.
Then nothing, for 11 years. His career went in a different direction, and the register has no Reyes entry between number 175 and number 605. He has hit more in this one season than in the whole of the rest of his career.
| No. | Year | Event | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 619 | 2026 | Players Championship 31 | Den Bosch |
| 613 | 2026 | Players Championship 29 | Den Bosch |
| 605 | 2026 | Austrian Darts Open (ET7) | Graz |
| 175 | 2015 | Players Championship 12 | Barnsley |
| 166 | 2015 | Players Championship 2 | Barnsley |
Where he had gone
Reyes, who is 39 and throws out of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, was one of the better players on the circuit a decade ago. The PDC’s own profile credits him as the first Spanish player to break into the world’s top 32; Darts World puts his career high at No.26, reached on the back of the 2017 season, when he played the World Matchplay for the first time.
He then came off the tour. Darts World’s account of the comeback points at the practical problem rather than the darts — a Tenerife base and a pandemic made getting to European events close to impossible — and after one Q-School attempt in 2022 and a handful of Challenge Tour days, he effectively vanished from the results for the better part of four years.
The way back started in November 2025 at the Mediterranean qualifier for the World Championship, where he beat Ricardo Perez in the final to reach Alexandra Palace for the first time in six years. He went out in the first round to Gian van Veen, who went on to reach the final. Weeks later he won a two-year Tour Card at Q-School, which means he is not required to requalify until 2028.
What a ranking of 68th hides
Reyes sits 68th on the PDC Order of Merit, on £109,500 on the dartsrankings.com table updated after Players Championship 31. That number reads worse than his season has been, because the Order of Merit counts two years of earnings and Reyes spent one of those two years not playing. Everything on his total was won in 2026.
More than £100,000 in a single season, from a standing start, is a good year by any floor player’s standards. In July he reached the first ranking final of his career at Players Championship 23 in Leicester, losing 8-5 to Cameron Menzies — the same Menzies who won Players Championship 29 in September, on the day Reyes hit nine-darter number 613. He has also reached European Tour quarter-finals at the Austrian Darts Open, where Josh Rock beat him 6-4 on the way to the title, and at the Swiss Darts Trophy.
For how the two-year window produces results like his — and why a player can climb fast while his ranking lags — see our explainer on how the PDC Order of Merit works.
Van Gerwen ended the day
Reyes won a second match in Den Bosch before his run stopped. Dartfreakz reports that Van Gerwen beat him in the third round in a deciding leg, and Reyes is absent from the last-16 lists, so that is where it finished. Van Gerwen lasted one round longer himself, losing 6-2 to Kevin Doets in the last 16 — his second defeat by Doets inside a week, after the Dutchman had already knocked him out of the European Championship.
The title went to 21-year-old Charlie Manby, who beat Maik Kuivenhoven 8-2 for his first PDC ranking title.
What’s next
Players Championship 32 is played at the same Maaspoort venue on Thursday 29 October, with the same depleted field that eight of the world’s top 16 skipped. Two more floor events follow in Leicester on 4-5 November, and then the season turns televised: the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton from 14 November, with the rest of the run-in on our 2026 darts calendar.
Five of this year’s 40-odd perfect legs have been thrown in front of television cameras. None of Reyes’ five has been one of them.