It’s no surprise that the two Lukes spearhead the market and of those two we’re opting for ‘The Nuke’ to be our most likely winner this weekend.

Having won the Premier League just over a week ago, the spotlight in the US has clearly been centred around this teenage sensation and darting phenomenon, with guest appearances on huge talk shows across the pond.

He seems to revel in it, however, and he’s passed each stepping stone he’s faced in his short PDC career to date with ease and there may be no stopping him here either.

The form of Littler is hard to knock, he’s won 19 of his last 25 matches and five of those six defeats have come against MVG (twice), Michael Smith (twice) and Luke Humphries. His other loss came against another young starlet Wessel Nijman, who boasts a good record against him.

He’s in the field as the no. 2 seed having won in Bahrain and finishing runner-up in the Dutch Darts Masters, the two previous World Series events so far this year.

He opens up against Canadian Matt Campbell, who on Tour this year has won just three of the 18 matches he’s played across all events and is averaging just 86.64 for the season, some 11.73 points lower than the 98.37 standard set by Littler.

It appears a mismatch on paper and with Littler riding high from his Premier League win and sitting in the easier half of the draw, he’s the deserved favourite here.

‘Bully Boy’ was also a player who reached the final night of the Premier League and was defeated by Luke Littler on that occasion.

Once again he’s in the same quarter as ‘The Nuke’, but if anyone is likely to see off Littler in the bottom half, it could be him. They have clashed eight times this season and it’s Smith who leads the head-to-head 5-3.

Smith has been in outstanding form of late too. During May, he has played 19 matches and won 15. Three of those four games he lost were against a player averaging over 100 and his winning runs included him winning Players Championship Nine and Premier League Night 16.

He’s also a previous winner of this event having claimed the title in 2022, defeating three World Champions en route to the crown on that occasion with victories over Gary Anderson, Peter Wright and Michael van Gerwen.

He kicks off against the veteran Jeff Smith who is very capable, as his run to the final here last year suggests. He lost his Tour Card at the end of last season though and you’d have to think that Smith will have too much. They’ve played three times previously and Smith has won all three.

Our third and final selection comes in the opposing half, and we are siding with ‘Voltage’. He opens against Adam Sevada. ‘The Undertaker’ is arguably the least well known player of the North American octet.

Cross should start strong favourite in that one and his next likely opponent is MVG, who eliminated him in the semi-finals of this event last year, 7-6 in a high-quality encounter. It was a match Cross led 6-4 and missed a match dart at the bull before van Gerwen closed it out.

The pair have met six times this season and it’s three wins apiece, although the leg count just about favours Cross, 30-27.

Cross was a recent winner on the Euro Tour, winning event six, the Baltic Sea Darts Open in mid May, where he defeated world champion and world no. 1, Luke Humphries in the final, a player he could face in the semi-finals here.

Cross has been up against it of late and has faced an opponent averaging over 100 in nine of his last 14 matches, however he has a strong winning record across those last 14, winning nine, which suggests his game is in a good place.

He should find things a little more straightforward against Sevada, MVG is vulnerable at present following a minor tinker with his darts and we know, having won the aforementioned Euro Tour event, the best players don’t fear him. He could be a surprise winner from the top half of the draw.