May the Dartmas festivities finally begin!
Michael van Gerwen begins his quest to successfully retain the World Championship trophy for the first time in his career tonight while Devon Petersen's dance moves will hopefully just be the icing on the cake to the entertainment on opening night.
Throughout the tournament I'll be writing daily previews for every match while I'll also be entering my scoreline predictions for each one in the , so get involved yourself and challenge me!
SUGGESTED ACCAS
Head-to-head: 2-0
2019 Meetings: 1-0
Titles this season: 0-0
Jelle Klaasen has fallen at his first hurdle in each of the last two years and he's sadly endured another disappointing season.
He's still a shadow of the player who reached the semi-finals of both the 2016 World Championship and UK Open while he hasn't won a title since 2015 and has only made it to one quarter-final in 2019.
In his favour, it's still one more quarter-final than Kevin Burness, who he thrashed 6-0 in their only meeting this year back in September.
Burness may well be 54 but that doesn't stop him having one of the most intimidating walk-ons in darts history and that could well intimidate Klaasen.
Head-to-head: 0-0
2019 Meetings: 0-0
Titles this season: 0-0
Kim Huybrechts' finest achievement so far this year is winning a leg of Speed Darts in 32.91 seconds to go top of the leaderboard. It's sensational viewing, especially considering he had 235 left after 22 seconds.
Head-to-head: 0-0
2019 Meetings: 0-0
PDC Senior Titles this season: 0-0
Luke Humphries and Devon Petersen were two of the success stories of last year's World Championship so it's a shame that one of them will bow out on opening night.
Dancing Devon headed to the Alexandra Palace ranked outside the world's top 70 and in grave danger of losing his tour card but came through three thrilling matches against Wayne Jones, Ian White and Steve West before bowing out to Nathan Aspinall in an epic showdown.
Head-to-head: NA
2019 Meetings: NA
Titles this season: 14-0
The last time MVG lost his first game at a World Championship was back in 2011 when he hadn't won any of his 50 PDC televised titles.
I can't see how either potential opponent will be able to bring him down on Friday night and I'm happy going with a whitewash for whoever it is.
Prediction: 3-0