72 line up at Ally Pally

Players from a record 25 countries will compete for £1 million in prize money at the Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship.

Get set for the sport's first £1m tournament

The field for the 2010 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship has been confirmed, with players from a record 25 countries competing for £1 million in prize money at Alexandra Palace from December 18-January 3. The world's biggest darts tournament, shown live on Sky Sports, will see 72 players battling for the record £200,000 first prize in the sport's first £1 million event. With a field featuring qualifiers from Gibraltar, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden for the first time, three more nations will be represented at Alexandra Palace than a year ago. In total, 16 players will compete in the preliminary round in a bid to join the other 56 in the first round proper, with the opening stages held from December 18-23. The second and third rounds will be held from December 27-30, before the quarter-finals and semi-finals take place on January 1/2, with the final and third-fourth place play-off on Sunday January 3. The top 32 players from the PDC Order of Merit qualify by right and are seeded in the first round draw, where they come up against the qualifiers from the Players Championship Order of Merit, European Order of Merit, North American Order of Merit and the preliminary round winners. Phil Taylor, the defending and 14-time World Champion, will be the number one seed for the tournament, with five-time World Champion Raymond van Barneveld seeded two, James Wade three and three-time World Champion John Part seeded fourth. Mervyn King becomes the number five seed, after jumping above Terry Jenkins in the Order of Merit by reaching the final of the German Darts Championship on Sunday. Roland Scholten holds on to 32nd place in the Order of Merit, ahead of Barrie Bates, Gary Anderson and Paul Nicholson, who all qualify via the Players Championship Order of Merit.

Debuts

Gibraltar's Dylan Duo and Germany's Jyhan Artut will make their World Championship debuts after winning qualification via the European Order of Merit, alongside Andree Welge and Mensur Suljovic. Australian Simon Whitlock bridges a seven-year gap from competing in the PDC World Championship, having reached the last 16 at the 2003 event and returning to the DartPlayers Australia circuit to great success this year. Poland's Krzysztof Kciuk, Sweden's Magnus Caris and Slovenian Osmann Kijamet will become their country's first representative in the Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship. Moscow's Roman Konchikov, 22, defeated Anastasia Dobromyslova on Saturday in the final of the Russian Qualifier to win his place in the tournament. The full draw for the Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship First Round will be made on Monday December 7, and will be shown live on Sky Sports News at 2.30pm. PDC Order of Merit Qualifiers 1 Phil Taylor (England)
2 Raymond van Barneveld (Netherlands)
3 James Wade (England)
4 John Part (Canada)
5 Mervyn King (England)
6 Terry Jenkins (England)
7 Ronnie Baxter (England)
8 Adrian Lewis (England)
9 Dennis Priestley (England)
10 Colin Lloyd (England)
11 Colin Osborne (England)
12 Alan Tabern (England)
13 Mark Walsh (England)
14 Andy Hamilton (England)
15 Kevin Painter (England)
16 Robert Thornton (Scotland)
17 Wayne Mardle (England)
18 Vincent van der Voort
19 Steve Beaton (England)
20 Peter Manley (England)
21 Mark Dudbridge (England)
22 Wayne Jones (England)