Luke Humphries has shown no signs of a hangover since suffering a shock exit at the World Darts Championship. The world number 1 bounced back from that bruising setback in style to be crowned the 2025 Winmau World Masters champion at the beginning of February. ‘Cool Hand’ has since carried that momentum into the 2025 Premier League, taking the weekly title on night 1 in Belfast before finishing as runner-up to Luke Littler in Glasgow. While he bowed out at the semi-final stage in Dublin last week, Humphries still finds himself sitting at the top of the Premier League table heading into night 4 in Exeter. Thus, the in-form Newbury ace looks well placed to add the UK Open to his ever-growing trophy haul. This title is 1 of the few which continues to elude Humphries, though he has come close on a couple of occasions, having finished as runner-up both last year and in 2021. Humphries should be there or thereabouts again this year, and he will undoubtedly be a player that the rest of the field will want to avoid in the unseeded and open draw after each round.

If anyone can upstage the usual suspects at the top of the market, it could be 2018 winner Gary Anderson. ‘The Flying Scotsman’ enjoyed a real renaissance in 2024, threatening to win a first major title in over 6 years when contesting a thrilling semi-final tie with Luke Littler at the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts. In fact, Anderson will consider himself unfortunate not to have defeated Littler and to have gone on to lift the title. It was no flash in the pan either, as Anderson had enjoyed a run to the quarter-finals of the European Championship just a few weeks prior to his impressive showings at the Grand Slam. Having also performed to a consistently high standard in floor tournaments throughout 2024, Anderson could benefit from the unique multi-board setup in Minehead. While the former 2-time world champion crashed out of the 2025 World Darts Championship after a shock 2nd-round loss to Jeffrey de Graaf, he arrived at the Ally Pally boasting the highest average of any player on the PDC circuit across 2024, ending the year with a monstrous return of 99.51. That bodes well for his bid to win a 2nd UK Open title.

In terms of value and outsiders to win this year’s UK Open, Jermaine Wattimena looks overpriced at a whopping 81.0. There is an argument to be made that ‘The Machine Gun’ was the most improved player across the entire PDC in 2024, particularly during the 2nd half of the year. The Dutchman demonstrated his capacity for outperforming his pre-tournament odds at the 2024 European Championship. Despite being 1 of the lowest-ranked players in the field coming into that particular tournament, Wattimena stormed his way through to the final, finishing runner-up to Ritchie Edhouse. The Dutch dartist then proceeded to deliver a string of top-class performances at the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts in November. He triumphed in each of his 3 group stage matches, sweeping aside both Michael Smith and Mike De Decker before dispatching Dimitri Van den Bergh in the round of 16. The 36-year-old arrowsmith made more headlines by thrashing James Wade 3-0 at the World Darts Championship in December and has since picked up an eye-catching win over Luke Humphries at last month’s Dutch Darts Masters. Averaging 96.07 since the turn of the year, Wattimena warrants support at a hefty price.