Antwerp Darts Trophy returns as Chisnall defends title, Littler back

The Blåkläder Flanders Darts Trophy resumes the PDC European Tour in Antwerp this weekend, with a 48-player field competing for a 175,000 prize fund, including a 30,000 winner’s cheque. The event runs from Friday August 29 to Sunday August 31 at the Antwerp Expo, where defending champion Dave Chisnall will begin his bid to retain the title after beating Ricardo Pietreczko in last year’s final, and teenage world champion Luke Littler makes a long-awaited return to European Tour action.

The tournament format sees the 16 highest-ranked players on the PDC Order of Merit seeded into the second round, with the remaining 32 players drawn from the Pro Tour Order of Merit and regional qualifiers. Early rounds and the quarterfinals are best of 11 legs, semifinals best of 13 and the final best of 15. The draw is scheduled for Thursday August 28 and will pair ProTour seeds against qualifiers in Friday’s first-round sessions, with action split across afternoon and evening sessions each day.

The field is strong but altered by late withdrawals. Luke Humphries, Gary Anderson and Nathan Aspinall have all pulled out ahead of the tournament, the PDC confirmed. Their places were filled by Krzysztof...