PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf assesses the top ten PDC stars - based on their last 200 legs played - following last weekend's German Darts Championship in Hildesheim.
#1 Averages - Cameron Menzies
#1 OChE - Cameron Menzies
#1 Doubles - Damon Heta
#1 171-180 - Luke Littler
#1 99, 101+ Checkout - Heta, Gilding, Williams, Sparidaans, Wright.
Having lived with serious competition in the form of two multiple World Champions for the entirety of his professional career, Cameron Menzies has risen up to become not only the Scottish number one in the Form Guide, but the number one overall, besting World Champion Luke Humphries in averages by more than 1.5 points.
Though he fell short in his bid for a first Players Championship title last month, Menzies put forward a 99.80 average over his last 200 legs during his most recent Milton Keynes campaign.
Contributing to that stellar figure was a 108.59 average in a 6-2 win against an opponent averaging more than 111, and a come-from-behind victory over James Wade in which Menzies, from 4-0 down, threw two 10-darters and three 12-darters to snatch the win from the English veteran.
Menzies has now reached the quarter-finals in five of his last six Players Championship appearances, and his status as the PDC's #1 form player clearly puts him next in line for a ranking title.
Having lost to Menzies in Players Championship 18 before avenging that defeat the next day, Chris Dobey not only won a second title of 2024, but also massively improved the efficiency with which he wins legs in the process.
After the World Matchplay Dobey was expected to win 55% of legs against average ProTour opponents, but after victories over three TV champions in his title run, the former Masters champion has now improved to nearly 63%.
With a lower average than Luke Littler, that figure suggests that Dobey, though scoring less heavily than the Premier League champion, is a bigger favourite on the floor to convert his scoring into legs won.
Only 0.3 points of averages separate the top four Englishmen (Dobey, Humphries, Searle and Littler) in the Form Guide, and while all four have had great success in 2024, Dobey leads the way in averages on the Players Championship circuit by more than a point.
While the top few players in averages and OChE are certainly favoured to win the next titles on offer, there is certainly no guarantee that they will do so, especially now that the German Darts Championship has been claimed by Peter Wright.
Even after phenomenal comeback wins against Michael van Gerwen and Luke Littler, Wright holds the 32nd highest average amongst Tour Card Holders, though his relatively high OChE suggests greater winning potential than his 93.53 average would indicate.
In rematches against either the Premier League champion or hypothetical matches against Daryl Gurney or Ryan Joyce, Wright is the statistical underdog.
His near-50% checkout rate - consistent across all scenarios and amounts of pressure - certainly goes some way towards explaining his success; also informative is his opponents' 21% doubles accuracy while tied with or holding a lead over 'Snakebite'.
While his opponents would not expect to finish so poorly in future matches, Wright also has the potential to fire off an unexpectedly high average, as Michael van Gerwen discovered - not all 93 averages are created equal, especially when one of those players is a multiple World Champion.
Players Championship 18 winner Damon Heta has achieved an eye-popping 48.3% accuracy on doubles over his last 200 legs, and he leads #2 checkout marksman Scott Williams by more than five points.
This is the highest doubles percentage ever recorded since the Form Guide began more than 18 months ago, and has enabled him, in 2024, to become only the second Australian player to win at least 10 PDC titles.
Heta did not need more than 15 darts at double to win any of the seven matches during his Players Championship 18 campaign, and his seven doubles hit with nine attempts in a deciding-leg victory over Cameron Menzies in that tournament's semi-final was the difference between victory and defeat.
Hitting doubles with a majority of his attempted darts - an achievement 'The Heat' is very close to reaching - would put him in a rarefied league of doubles accuracy with some of the best players of all-time.
*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