Entries for the 2026 Winmau World Masters Preliminary Rounds have been confirmed ahead of this week’s £500,000 showcase in Milton Keynes, with 122 players chasing just eight coveted spots in the main event.

The Preliminary Rounds will be staged at Arena MK on Wednesday January 28, with the top 24 players from the PDC Werner Rankings Ladder already exempt through to the televised stages from January 29–February 1. All remaining Tour Card Holders are eligible to compete, alongside invited players from the PDC’s 2025 secondary and affiliate tours and four representatives from the JDC Advanced Tour.

The top 32 ranked players will be seeded directly into the Last 64, where they will be joined by 32 group winners from the round-robin group stage. Each group will feature one seeded player, with the remaining competitors drawn at random.

A host of high-profile names headline Wednesday’s action, including two-time World Champion Peter Wright, the 2020 Masters winner in Milton Keynes. Former World Champion Michael Smith returns to the big stage, joined by 2022 Masters champion Joe Cullen and last year’s semi-finalist Dimitri Van den Bergh. Dutch stars Wessel Nijman and Dirk van Duijvenbode are also in the field, as are World Championship quarter-finalists Krzysztof Ratajski and Justin Hood.

Five-time World Champion Raymond van Barneveld is among eight Tour Card Holders absent from the event.

Matches will be played over the best of five sets, with live coverage on PDCTV from 1200 GMT, and the draw made at 1100 GMT.

Source: PDC.TV