Winner of 2018: Rob Cross

At the 13th of December it's time for the biggest tournament of the year, when the best players in the world will battle for the ultimate price: The World Championship in Darts.

This year the format of the tournament has been slightly changed, as the number of players increased to 96. Effectively this will mean that 64 non-ranked players will start in the first round, and the 32 ranked players will automatically be placed in round 2.

The 64 players in round one consist of 32 players that qualified through the pro-tour ranking, whilst the other 32 players have earned a ticket through qualifying tournaments across the globe.

Yesterday the draw has been completed, which resulted in the following round 2 matches:

Michael van Gerwen (1) vs. Alan Tabern/Raymond Smith
Max Hopp (32) vs. Danny Noppert/Royden Lam
Adrian Lewis (16) vs. Simon Stevenson/Ted Evetts
Raymond van Barneveld (17) vs. Matthew Edgar/Darius Labanauskas
Simon Whitlock (8) vs. Ryan Joyce/Anastasia Dobromyslova
Alan Norris (25) vs. Steve Lennon/James Bailey
James Wade (9) vs. Krzysztof Ratajski/Seigo Asada
Jelle Klaasen (24) vs. Keegan Brown/Karel Sedlacek
Daryl Gurney (5) vs. Ross Smith/Paul Lim
Jamie Lewis (28) vs. Martin Schindler/Cody Harris
Dave Chisnall (12) vs. Josh Payne/Jeff Smith
Kim Huybrechts (21) vs. Robert Thornton/Daniel Larsson
Gary Anderson (4) vs. Paul Nicholson/Kevin Burness
Jermaine Wattimena (29) vs. Michael Barnard/Jose De Sousa
Darren Webster (13) vs. Vincent van der Voort/Lourence Ilagan
Steve Beaton (20) vs. Chris Dobey/Boris Koltsov
Rob Cross (2) vs. Jeffrey de Zwaan/Nitin Kumar
Cristo Reyes (31) vs. Ricky Evans/Rowby-John Rodriguez
Jonny Clayton (15) vs. Dimitri Van den Bergh/Chuck Puleo
Stephen Bunting (18) vs. Luke Humphries/Adam Hunt
Mensur Suljovic (7) vs. Ryan Searle/Stephen Burton
James Wilson (26) vs. William O’Connor/Yordi Meeuwisse
Michael Smith (10) vs. Ron Meulenkamp/Diogo Portela
John Henderson (23) vs. Gabriel Clemens/Aden Kirk
Gerwyn Price (6) vs. Nathan Aspinall/Geert Nentjes
Kyle Anderson (27) vs. Jeffrey de Graaf/Noel Malicdem
Ian White (11) vs. Wayne Jones/Devon Petersen
Steve West (22) vs. Richard North/Robert Marijanovic
Peter Wright (3) vs. Toni Alcinas/Craig Ross
Benito van de Pas (30) vs. Mickey Mansell/Jim Long
Joe Cullen (14) vs. Brendan Dolan/Yuanjun Liu
Mervyn King (19) vs. Jan Dekker/Lisa Ashton

For the first time in PDC history, this year we will also see two ladies in action: Anastasia Dobromyslova and Lisa Ashton.

Lisa Ashton winning Lakeside

Lisa Ashton has won the ladies Lakeside 4 times, and Anastasia has 3 WC titles behind her name. Definitely not the type of ladies you should underestimate and I honestly hope that they will wipe out some male players along the way, and cause some fireworks in 'Alley Palley"

So who do you think will have the best papers to win the 2019 WC Darts?