World Champion Luke Littler will face a yet to be determined qualifier in the first iteration of the Winmau World Masters.
The tournament, which replaces the PDC Masters in the Calendar, is taking place at Arena MK in Milton Keynes between the 30th January and 2nd February 2024.
Eight qualifiers, who will go through a series of preliminary rounds, will join the Top 24 in the PDC Order of Merit, competing in a best-of-three legs per set format, with the sets needed to win increasing as the tournament progresses.
This is in line with original format of the tournament, the World Masters, which was first held in 1975 by the now defunct BDO.
PDC Chief Executive Matt Porter, who has held the role since January 2008, said of the changes:
“To be able to bring to bring it back in a new format, which has paid enough respect to the way the original Winmau World Masters was staged, but with the modern twist of players coming from our affiliate tours and secondary tours into those preliminary rounds
I think it’s going to be a thrilling weekend.”
The changes come after some unrest with the previous format, which saw exclusively the Top 24 in the world feature, with the money won not affecting the world rankings.
The draw in full:
(1) Luke Humphries v Joe Cullen
(16) Josh Rock v Qualifier 6
(8) Damon Heta v Ross Smith
(9) Gerwyn Price v Qualifier 4
(4) Rob Cross v Qualifier 8
(13) Danny Noppert v Michael Smith
(5) Stephen Bunting v Qualifier 5
(12) Peter Wright v Qualifier 1
(2) Luke Littler v Qualifier 3
(15) James Wade v Mike De Decker
(7) Jonny Clayton v Martin Schindler
(10) Chris Dobey v Ryan Searle
(3) Michael van Gerwen v Qualifier 2
(14) Gary Anderson v Dimitri Van den Bergh
(6) Dave Chisnall v Qualifier 7
(11) Nathan Aspinall v Andrew Gilding
Bournemouth face upward battle to hold onto key players