PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf assesses the top ten PDC stars - based on their last 200 legs played - following last weekend's Austrian Darts Open in Graz.
#1 Averages - Gerwyn Price
#1 OChE - Gary Anderson
#1 Doubles - Danny Noppert
#1 171-180 - Ross Smith
#1 99, 101+ Checkout - Joe Cullen
Though he ran out of gas in his final match against an unstoppable Luke Littler, Joe Cullen's Austrian excursion yielded encouraging results.
In defeating the redoubtable Stephen Bunting - one of the European Tour's most successful players in deciding legs - Cullen reached his first ProTour final in more than 18 months.
A 170 finish against Darius Labanauskas, moreover, gave him a 21st ton-plus checkout in his last 200 legs, and his 6-3 wins against Gian van Veen and Dave Chisnall with 102+ averages made him the most improved player of the second half of April, on the back of a six-point improvement in his OChE rating.
Such impressive wins have brought him up to the #30 player in averages and #22 in OChE; the traffic jam of players in the vicinity of the 95 average mark makes it difficult to stand out without, as in Cullen's case, claiming finalist prize money.
Martin Schindler broke new ground this month in becoming the new number four on the Form Guide, the first German player to crack the top five in his performances over the last 200 legs.
Schindler's recent exploits put him nearly on par with 2024's standout players Luke Littler, Gary Anderson and Gerwyn Price - all three players would expect to win more than 62 out of 100 legs in matches against average ProTour opponents.
The German surpassed a 98 average for the first time in Form Guide history thanks to a remarkable 107 tournament average in Sindelfingen at the European Darts Grand Prix.
Meanwhile, a 6-0 whitewash of fellow European Tour champion Ricardo Pietreczko in Austria leaves him with a substantial advantage in averages in prospective match-ups with six of eight Premier League competitors as the month of May begins.
Incidentally, three of those Premier League stalwarts slipped further down the Form Guide ranking table over the past two weeks.
Rob Cross slipped to 12th after collecting no ranking money in a 6-4 loss to Daryl Gurney in Austria, and he still remains winless in Premier League nightly finals this year.
Elsewhere, Luke Humphries - dispatched by Cross in Sindelfingen and Aspinall in Liverpool - experienced the greatest two-week decline in his averages and OChE, falling to seventh in both statistics.
However, recent results have been the most troubling for Michael van Gerwen, who has not managed a 100+ average in a Premier League match since March.
In terms of form, Van Gerwen is not a top-16 player at the moment; only 0.05 points separate him and his averages from those of #18 Jermaine Wattimena.
Despite losing for the third time in a European Tour quarter-final in 2024, Danny Noppert came the closest of any player in Graz to eliminating Luke Litter, and in doing so put on a doubling masterclass.
The Frisian phenom hit 17 doubles from 25 attempts this past weekend, propelling him up the leaderboard to the #1 spot in doubles accuracy, with 46.7%.
For the first time, Noppert is also the top-ranked Dutchman in averages and checkout efficiency.
Furthermore, he has a Players Championship title to show for his efforts in 2024 and is one of only four Tour Card Holders to have won every leg, when given the opportunity, in 21 darts or fewer.
Noppert - a top-ten form player - has only been held back in accumulation of more ranking income by a pair of deciding-leg losses on the European Tour and repeated encounters with Premier League players.
He is coincidentally likely to face Rob Cross for fourth time in six events in Kiel, as he seeks to become the first Dutch player - apart from Van Gerwen - to win a European Tour title within the last decade.
*OChE (Ordinal Checkout Efficiency) explained:
OChE is a metric designed to evaluate the efficiency at which players convert their averages into legs won.
The statistic is the % of legs a player would expect to win on the ProTour, calculated from a weighted average of 4,5, 6 & 7 visit checkout rates.
Follow Christopher on Twitter @ochepedia