Clayton taken to the limit but pushes through to last 16 at Ally Pally

The fifth seed had to be somewhere near his best in a nip-and-tuck third round affair with Niels Zonneveld

Sat, 27 Dec, 2025 - 18:48

Staff

Jonny Clayton was taken to the limit by Niels Zonneveld before moving into the last 16 of the PDC World Championship for a fifth successive year.

Clayton had to be somewhere near his best in a nip-and-tuck third round affair, in which the Welshman moved a set up three times only for Zonneveld to level on each occasion.

But the fifth seed held his nerve to clean sweep the deciding set and claim a 4-3 triumph, where he hit 11 180s and averaged 98.44 to his left-handed Dutch opponent's 99.36.

CLAYTON WINS A THRILLER!

Jonny Clayton wins the seventh and final set in straight legs to come out 4-3 winner of a fantastic contest against Niels Zonneveld, with both players averaging over 98!

📺 https://t.co/59TualjgND #WCDarts | R3 pic.twitter.com/Fo0ycNtxr0
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) December 27, 2025

Zonneveld had knocked out former world champion Michael Smith to reach this stage and Clayton said afterwards on Sky Sports: "I was thinking 'Niels, please let me win this, please!'"

Clayton might be a regular in the fourth round but he has never progressed beyond the quarter-finals at Alexandra Palace and the four-time major winner knows he must improve to break his duck.

He added: "I'm going to prove myself, I've had a few down years. Hopefully I'm going the right way. I'm looking forward to every time I walk on this stage and I feel good.

"There's a lot of loose darts, low scores. I need to get rid of them. You need those two treble visits and the more I get used to that and keep doing that then it gives me a little bit more of a chance."

Poland's Krzysztof Ratajski survived three match darts to overcome Gerwyn Price's conqueror Wesley Plaisier 4-3.

Plaisier went 3-1 up and might have wrapped up victory in the sixth set but could not land the killer blow and Ratajski hit back to record a fine win and set up a showdown against Luke Woodhouse, who was given few problems in beating Andrew Gilding 4-1.