The Form Guide: Rock ripping up the record books

Josh Rock (Kais Bodensieck/PDC)

PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf lists the top ten players in PDC darts based on the standard of their last 200 legs played, ahead of this week's Cazoo European Championship in Dortmund...

The Form Guide

#1 Averages - Josh Rock
#1 OChE - Josh Rock
#1 Doubles - Josh Rock
#1 171-180 - Dave Chisnall
#1 99, 101+ Checkout - Damon Heta

All of the traditional powers in darts have been eclipsed by a 21-year-old from Ireland.

Josh Rock, a Pro Tour winner in his first year of holding a PDC tour card, has become the first player born in the 21st century to top the form rankings of averages and checkout efficiency.

The breakthrough weekend for Rock saw him record an outstanding nine 105+ averages and defeat 13 players ranked above him on the Order of Merit. Over the past 200 legs, Rock has compiled an average of 102.17, one of the highest recorded this year.

This achievement has come simultaneously with a chart-topping 47.4% accuracy on doubles and 68.6% efficiency in winning legs, as measured by OChE* - making him suddenly and unexpectedly the form player in the world of professional darts.

Such is the magnitude of Rock's dominance in the form ratings, Damon Heta - ranked second on OChE - is nearly three average-points behind Rock and five percentage-points behind him in efficiency.

Heta still managed to win Players Championship 26 - one of the two events during the last week in which he did not encounter Rock. Heta does lead the PDC, however, in ton-plus checkouts, with 21 of his last 200 legs played (including legs lost) resulting in a high checkout from the Australian.

Even though Peter Wright reached a final and Gerwyn Price featured in two semi-finals, the Order of Merit leaders all lost ground against surging younger rivals.

Peter Wright's averages fell by 2.6 points relative to September; Michael Smith's fell by 4.1 and Jose De Sousa's fell by 1.7, with all three of those players also dropping in their OChE ratings.

However, Gary Anderson recovered well after two first round exits in ranking TV events, rising to the sixth position in the form rankings. The Scot now has a 44% probability of throwing a 13-15 darter in any given leg.

After Rock's 5.8 average-point improvement relative to September, the weekend saw an unexpected boom for Belgium's Mike De Decker, now with the 16th highest 200-leg average in the PDC. De Decker's 80 three-treble visits, second only to Dave Chisnall, boosted his averages above 95 for the first time on record.

His 113.74 average in defeat to Rock is the third-highest losing average on record for a Players Championship match - it is only his 100th best doubles percentage (33.8%) which held him back from a run to a semi-final or final last week.

*OChE (Ordinal Checkout Efficiency) explained:
OChE is a metric designed to evaluate the efficiency at which players convert their averages into legs won.
The statistic is the % of legs a player would expect to win on the ProTour, calculated from a weighted average of 4,5, 6 & 7 visit checkout rates.