Luke Humphries just looks incredible right now, and if it wasn’t for Luke Littler, he would have picked up the Premier League title with ease. There’s still quite a big gap between the two Lukes and the rest of the field, and that was shown in the final of the Premier League, where they both averaged in excess of 105 as Littler battled to an 11-10 win.

Humphries will be irked by Littler consistently getting the better of him in finals, often in last-leg deciders, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with how Humphries is playing. He’s won two Player Championship events and a European Tour already this year, and will be gearing up for a big summer of success as the major events start to come around. He’s operating at a seasonal average of 99.32, with a checkout percentage just over 40% - numbers that can only really be rivalled by Luke Littler.

Littler will always be the favourite in these events due to his underlying numbers, but there were signs during the Premier League campaign that his emotions are starting to overpower his freakish darting ability at times. Humphries has real momentum coming into this World Series event; he’s averaged 100+ in eight of his last 10 competitive matches and he should make light work of Jeffrey De Graaf in his opening game of the evening.

Stephen Bunting won the Nordic Darts Masters last year, beating Rob Cross in the final - and I think he’s at his best in these sorts of competitions. Bunting struggles with consistency at times, occasionally dropping to a 92-93 average, which is simply not the standard of the elite players, but I feel as though he enjoys these events where the pressure isn’t as intense.

We’ve seen this from Bunting towards the tail end of both of his Premier League campaigns over the last few years. He always picks up towards the end of the 16-week run when there isn’t as much to fight for. He even managed to win a Premier League night towards the end of the schedule, showing that he belongs with this crop of elite talent despite many questioning his inclusion in such events.

He’ll have the crowd behind him as always, and also has the most favourable draw in the first round with the Bullet taking on Viktor Tingstrom - a player who has failed to win more than two Players Championship games in 18 of the 19 events so far this season. They’ve never played before, but with 84 places between them in the PDC rankings, I think Bunting will have more than enough to start the tournament strongly and create some momentum as he looks to protect his crown.