Callan Rydz: How a Geordie shocked the world of darts on the biggest stage
Newcastle-born Callan Rydz had a wild ride at the 2025 World Darts Championship, beating numerous seeded players in his journey to the quarter-finals of the competition.
Rydz has had struggles in recent times with performances, and nobody imagined the run he would have at the Alexandra Palace this year.
He began his campaign with a solid 3-0 win over Croatia’s Romeo Grbavac in a match where he broke Luke Littler’s record of the highest average in the first round of the World Championship, scoring an average of 107.
The second round of the competition saw Rydz, otherwise known as “The Riot”, play against his first seeded opponent. Rydz defeated 22nd seed Martin Schindler 3-0 before thrashing 11th seed Dimitri van den Bergh 4-0 in the third round.
Rydz, who is cousins with fellow darts player Chris Dobey, is currently ranked 43rd in the PDC Order of Merit and qualified for the competition through the Pro Tour Order of Merit, in which he ranked 10th.
Until the fourth round, the 26-year-old had not conceded a set in any match he had played in the competition. However, this streak came to an end when he played non-seeded Robert Owen, where Rydz found himself two legs down to the Welshman.
The Riot managed to fight his way back to 2-2, and eventually beat Owen by four sets to three, securing himself a place in the quarter-finals against Michael van Gerwen.
However, the world number three posed too much for Rydz, and despite winning more legs and having a higher average of 103.88 compared to the Dutchman’s 103.1, he lost the match 5-3 and exited the competition.
Despite losing in the quarter-final to van Gerwen, Rydz secured £50,000 in prize money for reaching that stage of the competition, as well as raising £17,000 for Prostate Cancer UK during the match for his 17 180s, as Paddy Power pledged to donate £1,000 to the charity for every 180 hit.
His run in the tournament made him a hit with the fans and it has put him in with an outside chance of Premier League spot for the upcoming season.
