World Matchplay 2024 - The Debutants
Luke Woodhouse
Born: 13. October 1988Lives in: Bewdley, England
Darts: 21g Harrows
Nickname: Woody
Walk-on-Music: Country House (Blur)
Directly after Ricardo Pietreczko on the opening night of the World Matchplay in the last match debutant Luke Woodhouse will come on stage. He will play against reigning champion Nathan Aspinall.
Luke Woodhouse is the third "Luke" on the PDC Circuit at the moment and in contrary to Luke Humphries and Luke Littler he still waits for his breakthrough. He repeatedly shows good matches and you will think finally he's managed it but so far those matches have been infrequent.
Woddhouse started to play darts in 2088. Whether he ever took part in BDO/WDF tournaments is not known. 2013 he appeared on the PDC Challenge Tour and immidiately won an event. Till today it stayed his only PDC tournament win.
2015 Woodhouse played his fiirst UK Open but lost first round. 2017 Woodhouse qualified for his first Europena Tour Events but was as well eliminated first round. 2018 he got a Tour Card and managed to keep it till today. Since 2019 he took part in each UK Open and in each of the Players Championship Finals. 2023 he reached the quarterfinals of the Players Championship Finals - his so far best placing in a PDC TV tournament. His first PDC World Championship Woodhouse played in 2020 and reached the third round - his so far best result in this event though he has qualified every year since then.
2024 is so far quite a good year for Woodhouse who qualified for seven of the as yet eight European Tour events. Once he reached a quarterfinal. His averages on the European ranged from 83.11 to 98.74 but it looks they start to firm up on a quite high level. On the Pro Tour Woodhouse once could play himself this year in a semi-final and he reached the sixth round of the UK Open. So all in all it looks like a slight improvement of the performances.
Woodhouse got in the limelight with a nine-dart on the Home Tour and threw two nine-darters on the Pro Tour as well. As he tells he pratices a lot with Callan Rydz.
As Nathan Aspinall shows inconsitent performances at the moment Woodhouse can figure out he has a chance to survive the first round of the World Matchplay. But Aspinall is the reigning champion and not one to give in easily. Beside he is very popular with the crowd. Aspinall to be sure will give all that he has and that could be more then Woodhouse has to offer.