The Best Darts Players to Watch in 2020

One of the fastest-growing sports in the world as far as crowd numbers are concerned, darts is on the up and up.
And it’s a game dominated by one man: Michael van Gerwen.
The three-time world champion has won every major tournament that the Professional Darts Corporation has to offer, and even now he shows no signs of slowing down. There were six more big trophies added to his cabinet in 2019 alone, and you can be sure that the Dutchman will be the favourite in the 2021 outright World Championship Darts betting odds as well as all of the other majors.
There is something of a changing of the guard in the chasing pack, too. Five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld has now retired, while Gary Anderson, twice the champion of the world, has been beset by back injuries.

Michael van Gerwen had a scare, but the defending champion is through in the PDC World Championship.

Read: https://t.co/IP7PZJfZR6#bbcdarts pic.twitter.com/S56GwZqhKp

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) December 14, 2019

Even players like Peter Wright and Mensur Suljovic, the established ‘old guard’, seem to have lost their form, while Rob Cross, despite winning the World Matchplay in 2019, largely had a year to forget.
So, there is a vacancy for new faces to emerge to challenge the dominance of MVG, and here we have compiled a list of those most likely to.

Gerwyn Price

The march of the ‘Iceman’ is well and truly underway now that he has won back-to-back editions of the Grand Slam.
At the tail-end of 2019 he was playing the best darts of his life, winning that Grand Slam title and reaching the final of both the European Championships and the Players Championship.
The former rugby pro is now firmly ensconced in the top three players in the world, and he will be looking to cash in during 2020 by adding more silverware to his collection.
Nathan Aspinall
It’s not all that long ago that Nathan Aspinall considered quitting darts because he wasn’t making enough money to support his young family.

But a win on the Pro Tour in 2018 seemed to instil a sense of belief in ‘The Asp’, because he made his major breakthrough just a couple of months later.
He battled his way through to the World Championship semi-finals, beating the likes of Price and Brendan Dolan along the way, before going down to Michael Smith 3-6 in the last four.
The 28-year-old’s upward trajectory continued in 2019 when he won his first major, the UK Open, and a World Series event, and if that progress continues, then Aspinall could be ready to take on Van Gerwen in 2020.

Dimitri van den Bergh

The dancing Belgian has long been considered MVG’s heir apparent after winning the youth world championships in 2017.
But the 25-year-old hasn’t really kicked on since, and he’s still yet to go past the quarter-finals of a PDC major.
What Van De Bergh does possess, however, is tremendous poise and calm on the big stage, and he looks as likely as anyone from the ‘younger’ generation of dartists to climb up the world rankings in 2020.

Jeffrey de Zwaan

WINNER!

A superb contest there but Jeffery de Zwaan’s 102.82 average sees him prevail 6-3 over Kyle Anderson.

Next up on https://t.co/hSz0zP5tWg it’s Dimitri Van den Bergh v Thomas Kohnlein. pic.twitter.com/qWieXDFiZq

— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) April 26, 2019

All darts players have different techniques, and Jeffrey De Zwaan’s stands up as one of the best in the business.
He throws his arrows so hard he has the look of a hunter in the outback seeking his evening meal and, all joking aside, that really does help on the big stage when the pressure is on: because his darts don’t float into the board, he won’t suffer the inaccuracies of a nervous, unsteady hand.
De Zwaan is another young talent who is yet to reach the business end of a PDC major, but surely his time will come as he continues to build big match experience.

Luke Humphries

Here’s a player who is wholly at home on the big stage.
Despite making just his second appearance at Alexandra Palace at the 2019 Worlds, Luke Humphries took full advantage of his opportunity by battling his way to the quarter-finals, where he went down to eventual finalist Michael Smith.
A quiet 2019 followed where he struggled to come to terms with being a PDC tour cardholder as well as personal problems away from the oche, but Humphries returned renewed at the 2020 World Championships and once again made decent headway.
He, like the other four players on this list, are all more than capable of giving Michael van Gerwen a run for his money in the season to come.