Jeffrey de Graaf and Rashad Sweeting square off in Tuesday night’s curtain-raiser at the World Darts Championship. Dutch-born Swedish arrowsmith de Graaf will be making his second appearance at the Alexandra Palace, after reaching the third round last year. As for Sweeting, he will become the first-ever player from the Bahamas to compete on the world stage on Tuesday night.

The pre-match odds suggest Sweeting’s stay at the Ally Pally will be short lived, with de Graaf the heavy 1.06 favourite to come out on top. Instead, look to ‘The Rebel’ to reign supreme alongside hitting the most 180s.

The 34-year-old is ranked 24th for 180s scored in 2024, posting a very respectable return of 340 maximums thus far. He racked up a combined total of 16 180s across his 3 outings at the World Darts Championship 12 months ago, defeating the likes of Ritchie Edhouse and Jose de Sousa en route to round 3. De Graaf also won the 180 battle in defeating both Ryan Searle and Thibault Tricole at last month’s Players Championships Finals, so he looks well placed to repeat the trick.

Ricardo Pietreczko will look to hit the ground running at the World Darts Championship when he takes on Xiaochen Zong on Tuesday night. German dartist Pietreczko reached the 3rd round last year, pushing eventual title winner Luke Humphries all the way. Meanwhile, Zong has become a regular at the World Darts Championship, as he gears up for his 4th appearance at the Ally Pally. However, the Chinese ace has never progressed beyond the 1st round, and another early exit looks likely against Pietreczko.

With Pietreczko expected to take top honours, back him to do so alongside hitting the highest checkout. The German – who goes by the nickname ‘Pikachu’ – is very handy when it comes to delivering 3-figure outshots. In fact, he hit the highest checkout in each of his 3 outings on the world stage last year, including his round 3 loss to Humphries. It’s also worth pointing out that Pietreczko defeated Raymond van Barneveld and hit the biggest checkout of the game when the pair met in the first round of the World Grand Prix back in October. Thus, Pietreczko merits support to prevail as well as producing the highest checkout of this tie.

Ryan Meikle and Fallon Sherrock meet in an intriguing-looking round 1 clash. The winner of this tie will be rewarded with a second round tie against pre-tournament favourite Luke Littler. Meikle is the bookmakers’ favourite to march on here but he is unlikely to have things all his own way against the ‘Queen of the Palace’.

As such, Sherrock looks worthy of support with a 1.5 start on the 180 handicap. This means that Meikle would have to win the 180 count by 2 or more for our bet to lose.

The Buckinghamshire-born ace sits inside the top 60 for 180s scored across the PDC circuit this year, having hit 233 ahead of her latest visit to the Ally Pally. That tally tops that of round 1 opponent Meikle, who has hit 36 fewer maximums than Sherrock at this juncture.

Sherrock demonstrated her knack for filling up the treble 20 bed on this stage last year, winning the 180 count 6-2 in her round 1 defeat to Jermaine Wattimena. Furthermore, Sherrock did not lose the maximum battle in each of her 3 outings at the Grand Slam of Darts in 2023, where she came up against the likes of Rob Cross and Michael van Gerwen.