World Grand Prix 2026 Night Two Results: Rock and Dobey Out

The full night two results

Six of the eight seeds came through, the same tally as Monday, and five of the eight ties went to a deciding set. Seed numbers are in brackets.

Two men came from a set down. James Wade, a two-time champion here, lost the opening set 3-1 to Joe Cullen before finding an 81 finish on the bullseye in the second and taking the last two sets 3-1 apiece. Gary Anderson was in worse trouble: 1-3 down after one set, and then Damon Hetahad a match dart at double five in the second. Heta missed it, and Anderson won every leg that followed — five of them, the last three without reply, one of them closed with 115.

Humphries won on 80.41 with a rash on his forehead

The second seed beat Dave Chisnall 2-0 and then spent his interview dismantling his own performance. He averaged 80.41. He missed a set dart at double 18 in the opener and got out of it on double one. He put the visible mark on his forehead — noticed by anyone watching on Sky Sports — down to an allergic reaction after filming for ITV’s revived Bullseye.

“Arguably one of my worst performances on the World Grand Prix stage,” was his own verdict, and he added that he “didn’t feel comfortable throughout the whole game”. For scale: Gerwyn Priceaveraged 101.61 in this same round on Monday. Humphries was twenty-one points behind that and won in straight sets anyway, which says as much about Chisnall’s night as his own.

It is not unfamiliar ground for him. Humphries won this title in 2023 having played, by his own account, several ordinary matches on the way. The double-start format rewards the man who can put three darts at a double and keep his temper more than the man averaging 95, which is why the double-in, double-out rules make this the least predictable week of the year.

Searle lost the leg count and won the match

Ryan Searle beat William O’Connor2-1 having won six legs to O’Connor’s seven. That is the arithmetic of set play. O’Connor took the middle set 3-0, banking three legs that bought him nothing, then lost the decider 3-2 having had match darts in it and missed them. Searle’s six legs were simply distributed better: three in the first set, three in the third, none wasted on a set he was never going to win.

The players this tournament keeps swallowing

Rock and Dobey were the two casualties, and Heta was the other man whose record got worse. All three arrived in Leicester with a Grand Prix history that reads nothing like their history anywhere else.

Heta’s line is the striking one. Six entries, six first-round defeats, no match won. He won the World Cup of Darts alongside Simon Whitlock in 2022, Australia’s first, and in the one PDC major that asks him to start a leg on a double he has never seen a second round. Dobey has now gone out in the first round three years running, which for a man who reached the 2019 semi-finals and two quarter-finals is a remarkable reversal. Rock’s solitary win here remains his 2025 run to the last 16.

None of that is coincidence so much as arithmetic. The first round is the best of three sets, the shortest match in the tournament, and a heavy scorer who cannot find the outer ring early has almost no runway to recover on. The bigger reputations lose here more often than anywhere, as the first-round draw flagged before a dart was thrown.

Zonneveld and Wattimena, the two who did the damage

Zonneveld had never played a World Grand Prix before Tuesday and is now in the last 16 of it. Rock levelled the match with a 151 finish to save the second set — the shot of the night on either side — and Zonneveld answered by closing the decider with 103, 116 and a 133 taken out on his favoured double 14.

Wattimena’s win was the longer wait. He reached the quarter-finals here in 2019 and had not won a match at the tournament since, losing in the first round in 2020 and again in 2025. Dobey missed early darts to break in both sets and never recovered; a 128 checkout gave him a moment in the second before Wattimena took it 3-2.

Gian van Veen also broke a duck, at the third attempt. Beaten in the first round in 2024 and 2025, he won the Dutch derby against Dirk van Duijvenbode 2-0 and reached the second round of the only major that had resisted him. His climb up the Order of Merit this season has been the story of 2026 and this was the hole in it.

The complete last 16

All sixteen ties are gone and the second round splits the same way the first did: Monday’s winners on Wednesday, Tuesday’s on Thursday. Both sessions start at 19:00 BST, an hour later than the first-round nights, and matches lengthen to the best of five sets.

Twelve of the original sixteen seeds survived the first round and the four who did not include the top seed. With Luke Littler and Michael van Gerwen both beaten on Monday, Humphries is the highest seed left in the draw, and his own half also holds two-time champion Wade. The top half has no seed higher than fourth. The quarter-finals are on Friday 2 October, the semi-finals on Saturday and the final on Sunday, all at the Mattioli Arena; the rest of the week is on the darts calendar.

What Tuesday changed

Nothing on the scale of Monday, when Luke Woodhouse beat the defending champion and Ryan Joyce sent Van Gerwen out of this tournament for the third year running. Tuesday was the quieter night of the two: fewer names gone, fewer big numbers, more matches decided by which player blinked at a double.

It leaves a bottom half that looks, on the bracket, considerably more orthodox than the top one. Humphries, van Veen, Wade, Anderson, Bunting and Searle are all seeded; Zonneveld and Wattimena are the intruders. The top half still has Woodhouse and Joyce in it. Sixteen players went home with £7,500 across the two nights, and the eight who lose this week collect £20,000 — the figures are in our prize money and schedule breakdown.

Humphries, for what it is worth, was not worried. He has won this thing playing badly before.