Raymond van Barneveld World Championship hopes are under real pressure
The PDC World Championship picture is tightening, and Raymond van Barneveld, Dimitri Van den Bergh and Scott Williams are all facing serious pressure if they want to qualify through the ranking routes. According to a DartsNews report published on Monday 22 June 2026, Vincent van der Voort told Darts Draait Door that he has major doubts about all three making it automatically. It is not an official elimination story, but it is a clear warning sign for three big names in darts.
The concern is easy to understand when you look at the DartsRankings World Championship Race. Van Barneveld is listed 44th on 140.25, Williams 51st on 129, and Van den Bergh 59th on 120.25 in the relevant race table cited here. A separate lower table on the same page lists Van den Bergh 96th on 16.75, Williams 110th on 13.75 and Van Barneveld 117th on 10.75. That wider ranking squeeze was also reflected in NineDartNews’ recent look at Michael Smith’s live PDC Order of Merit slide. Those numbers do not confirm anyone is out, but they underline how much work remains.
Van der Voort framed the issue bluntly when discussing recent form and the shrinking schedule. “Van den Bergh is of course also a semi-finalist. Scott Williams is a semi-finalist. All not that long ago.” Yet his verdict on the present was stark: “And yes, they’re really struggling at the moment.”
Why the pressure is building so quickly
What makes this story more alarming is not only the current positions, but the lack of time left to recover. Van der Voort pointed to the calendar rather than any single bad defeat. “You’ve already had more than twenty ProTours. There are only about ten, twelve to go. A few more Euro Tours. Everything has to happen in those.” That is the core issue. There may still be routes available, but the margin for drift is gone.
For Van den Bergh, the challenge appears especially steep. Damian Vlottes, also speaking on Darts Draait Door as quoted by DartsNews, said of his deficit: “That’s just really a lot.” Van der Voort was even more direct: “The chance that Dimitri is going to make it, to be honest, isn’t very big.” He added a more structural concern too: “Over the years it’s become clear that he just finds ProTours very difficult. And that’s exactly where it has to happen now.”
That matters because ranking recoveries are rarely built on reputation. They are built on week-to-week floor results, timely Euro Tour runs and enough consistency to turn one good stretch into a proper surge. A player can still have pedigree, stage quality and previous Ally Pally memories, but if the ranking route depends on ProTour accumulation, then every missed board final or early exit bites harder.
What it means for Van Barneveld, Williams and the run to Ally Pally
For Van Barneveld, this is where the Raymond van Barneveld World Championship conversation becomes uncomfortable. There is no suggestion that his class has vanished, and nobody should confuse ranking danger with mathematical elimination. But Van der Voort’s assessment was severe: “I don’t know exactly how far behind he is. But it’s not like there’s anything to hold on to that suggests it’s going to get much better soon.”
Williams sits in the same broad danger zone. He has recent World Championship pedigree, like Van den Bergh, yet the rankings pressure described in the source shows how quickly a past semi-final can become irrelevant once the race moves on. The warning here is not that these players cannot produce a big run. It is that they may need several of them, in quick succession, across the remaining events.
There is also an important edge case for readers to keep in mind. Being outside the main danger lines on DartsRankings is not the same as an official final PDC qualification list. Alternative routes can still matter, including the PDPA Qualifier mentioned in the source. But that should be seen as a possible fallback, not a comfort blanket.
So the picture is simple: the schedule is shorter, the deficits are visible, and the pressure is now very real for all three players chasing the World Championships at Ally Pally. Van der Voort’s conclusion captured the mood: “I think all three won’t make the Worlds. Not via the rankings, anyway.” The next step is straightforward. They do not need talk, they need ranking money, and they need it soon.
