Seven wins in a day, and an 11-dart leg to finish
Humphries needed seven matches to get through the 128-player bracket and did not lose more than four legs in any of them. Two whitewashes came back to back in the early rounds — 6-0 against Darius Labanauskas off an average around 106, then 6-0 against Tom Bissell off one close to 110, the best scoring of his day. The final itself he closed with an 85 checkout in 11 darts.
He won the World Grand Prix at this same Mattioli Arena a month ago, then missed the European Championship in Dortmund in late October after being diagnosed with gastroenteritis. Leicester is where his season keeps happening.
| Round | Opponent | Race | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | Archie Self | Best of 11 | 6–2 |
| Last 64 | Darius Labanauskas | Best of 11 | 6–0 |
| Last 32 | Tom Bissell | Best of 11 | 6–0 |
| Last 16 | Steve Lennon | Best of 11 | 6–2 |
| Quarter-final | Gerwyn Price | Best of 11 | 6–2 |
| Semi-final | Gary Anderson | Best of 13 | 7–4 |
| Final | Niels Zonneveld | Best of 15 | 8–4 |
The two best averages of the day did not win the title
Michael van Gerwen put 114.15 past Danny Noppert in a 6-0 quarter-final, the highest average anyone managed in Leicester all day. He was out in the next round, beaten 7-5 by Zonneveld.
Five of the eight quarter-finalists were Dutch, which is the other way of reading the day. Alongside Van Gerwen and Zonneveld there were Noppert, Van Duijvenbode and Raymond van Barneveld; the three who were not were Humphries, Anderson and Price. Anderson beat Van Barneveld 6-3 and Zonneveld beat Van Duijvenbode 6-4, which left one Dutchman in each half and, in the end, one in the final.
Gary Anderson’s semi-final was starker still. Anderson averaged 106.75 against Humphries and lost it 7-4. Humphries was over 104 himself, so neither man threw badly — Anderson simply had the better numbers and the worse scoreboard. In a race to seven legs, two missed doubles is the whole margin.
Bars are scaled from a baseline of 85 to show the spread. Only averages reported by three or more outlets are included. Source: dartn.de, DartFreakz and DartsKing match reports.
What a Players Championship actually pays
Zonneveld’s run — past Ritchie Edhouse, Jack Aldridge and Justin Hood, then 6-1 against Jeffrey de Zwaan, 6-4 against Dirk van Duijvenbodeand 7-5 against Van Gerwen — was worth £10,000. Humphries took £15,000. Those two cheques are a sixth of the £150,000 on offer, and the structure underneath them is unusually brutal for a professional event.
| Stage reached | Players | Each | Stage total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winner | 1 | £15,000 | £15,000 |
| Runner-up | 1 | £10,000 | £10,000 |
| Semi-finalists | 2 | £6,500 | £13,000 |
| Quarter-finalists | 4 | £4,000 | £16,000 |
| Last 16 | 8 | £3,000 | £24,000 |
| Last 32 | 16 | £2,000 | £32,000 |
| Last 64 | 32 | £1,250 | £40,000 |
| Beaten in round one | 64 | £0 | £0 |
| Total | 128 | — | £150,000 |
The stage totals sum to exactly £150,000, which is the published fund, so the breakdown checks out against itself. Read down the Players column and the shape of a floor event becomes clear: 64 of the 128 Tour Card holders who travelled to Leicester were beaten in their opening match and paid nothing at all. The 32 players who won once and lost their second match collected £40,000 between them — more than Humphries and Zonneveld took home combined. Humphries now has four of these titles in 2026; only Wessel Nijman, on six, has more.
A nine-darter knocked a Minehead contender out in round one
Tommy Lishman produced the shot of the opening round, throwing a nine-darter in the deciding leg of his opening tie to beat David Sharp 6-4 on board four. Sharp could have done without it. He arrived in Leicester holding 63rd place on the Players Championship Order of Merit — the second-last of the 64 Minehead qualifying spots, as our Players Championship 32 reportset out — and went out to a perfect leg without adding a penny.
Perfect legs have stopped being rare on this tour. Three were thrown at the Maaspoort in Den Bosch at Players Championship 32 six days earlier, by Wesley Plaisier, Bradley Brooks and Tom Sykes.
What Players Championship 33 did to the Minehead cut
Anderson went into the day 68th and outside the places, having skipped Den Bosch. A run to the semi-finals and the £6,500 that came with it has moved him back to the right side of the line with one event to play. Gerwyn Price, 58th before Leicester and already inside, added quarter-final money to the cushion. Both did their serious work on Wednesday rather than hoping for Thursday.
Van Barneveld had the other consequential afternoon. Four wins took him to that quarter-final, and the prize money moves him to the brink of a World Championship place through the ProTour ranking rather than the main Order of Merit.
Players Championship 34 at the same venue on Thursday closes the season’s floor programme and settles the last places. The top 64 then go to Butlin’s Minehead on 20-22 November for the Players Championship Finals — without the defending champion, since Luke Littler entered only two floor events all year and cannot reach the cut. Before that comes the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton from 14 November.
Full standings for both races are on the live Players Championship Order of Merit and the ProTour Order of Merit.