{"id":10732,"date":"2026-03-19T21:01:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=10732"},"modified":"2026-03-19T21:01:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:01:40","slug":"littler-in-the-hunt-for-a-hattrick-at-belgian-darts-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/littler-in-the-hunt-for-a-hattrick-at-belgian-darts-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Littler in the hunt for a hattrick at Belgian Darts Open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Luke Littler will open his defence of the Lecot Belgian Darts Open against either Raymond van Barneveld or Boris Krcmar, with the draw and schedule for this weekend&#8217;s European Tour event confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Littler has prevailed in each of the last two editions of the Belgian Darts Open, and the World Champion will be the star attraction in Wieze, as a 48-player field battle it out across three days of action from March 20-22 at the Oktoberhallen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Friday&#8217;s opening round will feature 16 matches across two sessions, as Wessel Nijman begins his bid for back-to-back European Tour titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nijman &#8211; fresh from his European Darts Trophy success in Goettingen last weekend &#8211; kicks off his campaign against Poland&#8217;s number two Sebastian Bialecki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elsewhere, five-time World Champion Van Barneveld will make his first European Tour appearance of 2026 against Croatia&#8217;s Krcmar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2022\/23 World Champion Michael Smith begins his title challenge against former Grand Slam semi-finalist Mickey Mansell, while Dirk van Duijvenbode goes up against Germany&#8217;s Lukas Wenig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dave Chisnall &#8211; a winner of eight European Tour titles and a former winner in Wieze &#8211; has been pitted against French trailblazer Thibault Tricole, while Poland&#8217;s premier player Krzysztof Ratajski meets Spanish star Cristo Reyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scott Williams and Ricky Evans will collide in another eye-catching tie, with Daryl Gurney and Ian White set to lock horns in a battle of the former European Tour winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joe Cullen will be another high-profile name in opening round action, and the former Masters champion will play a Host Nation representative for a place in round two &#8211; with the final four Belgian competitors being confirmed on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the conclusion of Friday&#8217;s action, the top 16 players on the PDC Werner Rankings Ladder enter the fray in round two on Saturday, as Littler prepares to face either Van Barneveld or Krcmar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>World number two Luke Humphries will play Van Duijvenbode or Wenig on Saturday evening, while Van Gerwen could potentially meet Smith in a repeat of two previous World Championship finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welsh number one Jonny Clayton faces a tough opening assignment against Nijman or Bialecki, as Cullen sets his sights on a showdown against Bunting, if he overcomes Belgian opposition on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sixth seed James Wade will play Ratajski or Reyes, as Northern Ireland&#8217;s World Cup champion Josh Rock prepares to take on Springer or a Host Nation Qualifier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chisnall or Tricole will await former Masters champion Chris Dobey in round two, while Nathan Aspinall &#8211; a winner of three European Tour titles in 2025 &#8211; has been drawn against Ryan Joyce or Adam Gawlas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Belgian number one Mike De Decker will also headline this weekend&#8217;s action on home soil, and the former World Grand Prix champion gets his campaign underway against European Darts Trophy semi-finalist Niels Zonneveld or Finland&#8217;s former World Cup semi-finalist Jani Haavisto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><br><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Luke Littler will open his defence of the Lecot Belgian Darts Open against either Raymond van Barneveld or<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-10732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-darts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler.jpg",2048,1365,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler.jpg",2048,1365,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/international\/\" rel=\"category tag\">International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ET-1-Luke-Littler.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10734,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10732\/revisions\/10734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}