World Series of Darts changes venues for Australia in 2020

The Professional Darts Corporation has announced that the World Series will travel to Wollongong, New South Wales, and Townsville, Queensland, for the first time, replacing the Brisbane and Melbourne darts masters from the last decade. Australia and New Zealand have produced some exciting talent via the World Series who will look to take on the PDC's top players and Fallon Sherrock, who will make the trip down under.

"We've travelled around Australia in recent years with the World Series of Darts and it's exciting for us to be visiting Wollongong and Townsville for the first time in 2020 to take these fantastic events to new audiences. Both are strong sporting areas and this is a great opportunity to see the world's top darts players live in high-profile international tournaments" - PDC Chief Executive Matthew Porter.

Australia and New Zealand's best players will assemble to take on the PDC big names via local qualification tournaments and rankings. Two wildcards are likely to be given out by the PDC for this, with tour card holders Simon Whitlock, Kyle Anderson and Damon Heta all in the running to compete.

Regional success early in the season could help secure spots for local stars Gordon Mathers and Robbie King while regulars Corey Cadby, James Bailey and Raymond Smith, as well as New Zealand's best players, including Cody Harris, Haupai Puha and Ben Robb and the unheralded Darren Herewini will all look to claim a spot.

In a controversial move, Fallon Sherrock will take part in all World Series events in 2020.

The US Darts Masters, which will take place in New York this year, and the Nordic Darts Masters have already had the PDC professionals participating confirmed. The repeat players include Michael van Gerwen, Peter Wright, Gerwyn Price, Rob Cross, Gary Anderson, Nathan Aspinall and huge wildcard Fallon Sherrock, who will be the first ever non-tour card holder to participate in the PDC spots of the World Series.

The big names who have already qualified for the US and Nordic events include Dan Lauby Jr, Darius Labanauskas and Madars Razma, while stars Danny Baggish, Leonard Gates, Darin Young, Dawson Murschell, Jeff Smith and Dennis Nilsson will all look to take up the knockout qualifier spots.

Despite being world number five, Michael Smith has not been confirmed for any events yet.

The spots for these two Australian events, as well as possible events in Germany and New Zealand, are still up for grabs. Rob Cross will likely miss some of the year due to his wife's pregnancy while Daryl Gurney and Dimitri van den Bergh look to be interchangeable for later events after their surprise selections for New York and Copenhagen. For Australian events, the PDC may consider putting in Simon Whitlock or Damon Heta as an eighth player but there are still top players who could take the PDC spots.

The top contenders to come in start with Michael Smith, who must consider himself desperately unlucky not to be included. His only television tournament win was a World Series events and he is by far the highest ranked player not to be included. Other contenders are Premier League player Glen Durrant and the highly ranked trio of Ian White, Dave Chisnall and Mensur Suljović. World number nine James Wade seems pretty uninterested this year in non-ranked major tournaments, so will likely not be picked.

The 2020 New South Wales Darts Masters will take place on August the 14th and 15th while the Queensland Darts Masters will take place on August the 28th and 29th.