{"id":559944,"date":"2026-07-21T01:41:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T01:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559944\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T01:41:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T01:41:19","slug":"world-matchplay-darts-2026-results-luke-humphries-suffers-shock-first-round-loss-to-cameron-menzies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559944\/","title":{"rendered":"World Matchplay Darts 2026 results: Luke Humphries suffers shock first-round loss to Cameron Menzies"},"content":{"rendered":"

World number two Luke Humphries is out of the World Matchplay after a shock first-round loss to Scotland’s Cameron Menzies.<\/p>\n

The former world champion was punished for some poor finishing and lost his first six legs with the darts before finally holding throw.<\/p>\n

Humphries threatened to stage a dramatic comeback, winning four legs on the spin to get back to 8-7 but Menzies sealed a stunning 10-7 victory in style by reeling in the ‘big fish’ – a maximum 170 checkout.<\/p>\n

The result will come as a huge disappointment to Humphries after he had shown signs of returning to top form – beating Luke Littler to win the US Darts Masters<\/a> in June – in the past couple of months after a slow start to the year.<\/p>\n

But for Menzies, ranked 27th in the world, it is a momentous victory and one he says he “will take to his grave” as he becomes one of just three unseeded players to advance at this year’s tournament.<\/p>\n

The Scot will now face 15th seed Ross Smith in the second round on Wednesday after the Englishman’s 10-6 win over Netherlands’ Kevin Doets.<\/p>\n

Both players averaged over 100 and managed over 50% on the doubles in a high-quality match but Smith hit when it mattered most to progress.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Gerwyn Price survived a scare before overcoming Germany’s Martin Schindler 11-9.<\/p>\n

The Welshman admitted it was “probably one I should’ve lost” after falling 4-0 and 6-2 behind.<\/p>\n

Even after fighting back to take his first lead at 9-8, Price was made to work to finish it off as Schindler hit a 121 checkout to break back before the seventh seed eventually sealed the win in the 20th leg.<\/p>\n

It will be a battle of two former world champions in round two as Price faces Rob Cross after the Englishman’s comprehensive 10-3 win over 10th seed Danny Noppert of the Netherlands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World number two Luke Humphries is out of the World Matchplay after a shock first-round loss to Scotland’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-559944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}