Limerick's William O'Connor learns draw for World Darts Championships at 'Ally Pally'

LIMERICK man William O'Connor will face Marko Kantele, of Finland, in the opening round of the 2019/2020 William Hill World Darts Championship in London next month.

Some 96 of the world's best players will compete from December 13 to January 1, 2020 at the Alexandra Palace for the Sid Waddell Trophy and a total of stg£2.5 million in prize money.

Should Cappamore man O'Connor come through his opening round fixture he will face back-to-back Grand Slam of Darts champion Gerwyn Price, of Wales, in the second round of the championships.

The William Hill World Darts Championship is televised live on Sky Sports.

William O'Connor's ranking has moved up to 37 on the back of him reaching the quarter-finals of the Ladbrokes Players Championship last weekend.

O'Connor, nicknamed 'The Magpie', followed up on a 6-3 second round win over Krzysztof Ratajski, of Poland, at Butlin's Minehead Resort with a 10-7 win over Gabriel Clemens on Saturday night.

However, the 33-year-old bowed out of the competition after suffering a dramatic 10-9 defeat to Ian White in Sunday afternoon's quarter-finals.

World Cup finalist O'Connor reached the third round of the William Hill World Darts Championship last December before suffering a 4-1 defeat to England’s Ryan Searle at the ‘Ally Pally.’

Former carpenter O'Connor had reached the last 32 stage of the sport's biggest tournament by beating Yordi Meeuwisse, of the Netherlands, and 26 seed, James Wilson, of England.

The schedule of play for the first round games at the 2019/2020 William Hill World Darts Championship will be confirmed later this week.

2019/2020 William Hill World Darts Championship Draw Bracket

Seeded Players Enter In Second Round
(1) Michael van Gerwen v Jelle Klaasen/Kevin Burness
(32) Ricky Evans v Mark McGeeney/Matt Campbell
(16) Jonny Clayton v Ryan Joyce/Jan Dekker
(17) Stephen Bunting v Arron Monk/Jose Justicia
(8) James Wade v Ritchie Edhouse/Boris Koltsov
(25) Steve Beaton v Kyle Anderson/Xiaochen Zong
(9) Ian White v Darius Labanauskas/Matthew Edgar
(24) Max Hopp v Gabriel Clemens/Benito van de Pas
(5) Gary Anderson v Brendan Dolan/Nitin Kumar
(28) Steve West v Ryan Searle/Robbie King
(12) Nathan Aspinall v Andy Boulton/Danny Baggish
(21) Krzysztof Ratajski v Jamie Hughes/Zoran Lerchbacher
(4) Michael Smith v Luke Woodhouse/Paul Lim
(29) Dimitri Van den Bergh v Josh Payne/Diogo Portela
(13) Adrian Lewis v Cristo Reyes/Lourence Ilagan
(20) Darren Webster v Ryan Meikle/Yuki Yamada
(2) Rob Cross v Kim Huybrechts/Geert Nentjes
(31) Danny Noppert v Steve Lennon/Callan Rydz
(15) Joe Cullen v James Wilson/Nico Kurz
(18) Jermaine Wattimena v Luke Humphries/Devon Petersen
(7) Peter Wright v Rowby-John Rodriguez/Noel Malicdem
(26) Keegan Brown v Mickey Mansell/Seigo Asada
(10) Dave Chisnall v Vincent van der Voort/Keane Barry
(23) Jeffrey de Zwaan v Raymond van Barneveld/Darin Young
(6) Daryl Gurney v Justin Pipe/Benjamin Pratnemer
(27) Glen Durrant v Jose De Sousa/Damon Heta
(11) Mensur Suljovic v Ted Evetts/Fallon Sherrock
(22) Chris Dobey v Ron Meulenkamp/Ben Robb
(3) Gerwyn Price v William O'Connor/Marko Kantele
(30) John Henderson v James Richardson/Mikuru Suzuki
(14) Simon Whitlock v Harry Ward/Madars Razma
(19) Mervyn King v Ross Smith/Ciaran Teehan