{"id":702698,"date":"2026-07-21T03:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T03:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/702698\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T03:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T03:22:11","slug":"world-matchplay-darts-2026-results-luke-humphries-suffers-shock-first-round-loss-to-cameron-menzies-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/702698\/","title":{"rendered":"World Matchplay Darts 2026 results: Luke Humphries suffers shock first-round loss to Cameron Menzies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">World number two Luke Humphries is out of the World Matchplay after a shock first-round loss to Scotland&#8217;s Cameron Menzies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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 &#8216;big fish&#8217; &#8211; a maximum 170 checkout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The result will come as a huge disappointment to Humphries after he had shown signs of returning to top form &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/darts\/articles\/cx245892gpmo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">beating Luke Littler to win the US Darts Masters<\/a> in June &#8211; in the past couple of months after a slow start to the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But for Menzies, ranked 27th in the world, it is a momentous victory and one he says he &#8220;will take to his grave&#8221; as he becomes one of just three unseeded players to advance at this year&#8217;s tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Scot will now face 15th seed Ross Smith in the second round on Wednesday after the Englishman&#8217;s 10-6 win over Netherlands&#8217; Kevin Doets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Meanwhile, Gerwyn Price survived a scare before overcoming Germany&#8217;s Martin Schindler 11-9.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Welshman admitted it was &#8220;probably one I should&#8217;ve lost&#8221; after falling 4-0 and 6-2 behind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It will be a battle of two former world champions in round two as Price faces Rob Cross after the Englishman&#8217;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&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-702698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}