Switzerland has its first professional darts player

36-year-old Stefan Bellmont from Zug has qualified early for the World Championship in Wigan, and has picked up two valuable rewards at the same time.
 

On Monday, Stefan Bellmont was resting in a hotel room in Wigan, England. He was enjoying the ‘calm before the storm’ that he earned for himself in the English town over the weekend. In the penultimate tournament of the Challenge Tour season, he beat all his opponents, and can no longer be overtaken as the leader in the overall standings in the last of these 24 competitions.

This has secured him his second World Championship appearance after 2024, and at the same time earned him the coveted tour card, which is valid for two years. ‘I'm slowly realising what I've achieved. It's good that I can relax here in Wigan for two days,’ he says. He will be competing in two more Players Championship tournaments in the same town on Wednesday and Thursday. ‘Things haven't always gone perfectly recently, and there were times when I didn't win any prize money at all. That's why it was such a big surprise that I even managed to finish first overall.’ He had set his sights on second place as his minimum goal, but ultimately benefited from the fact that his competitors also made mistakes. ‘Luckily for me, everything went well, so now I can say I did everything right.’

‘The most difficult tournament ever’
He is now the World Number 118 in the so-called ‘Order of Merit’ (prize money list) and has good prospects of working his way further up. And he is automatically eligible for all Pro Tour tournaments, the 33rd and 34th of which will be played on Wednesday and Thursday. Almost all the stars usually play in these tournaments, so the Zug native can now rightly call himself a professional. ‘I would say: Switzerland has its first professional darts player,’ someone wrote in a fan chat.

Stefan Bellmont has reason to celebrate: from now on, he will be competing in even more prestigious tournaments                Photo: Imago/Harald Bremes
 

Stefan Bellmont will soon be able to reap another reward from Sunday's victory: the Grand Slam of Darts will take place in Wolverhampton from the 8th to the 16th November, and Bellmont has secured a place in the 32-strong starting field.

In this somewhat special format, the players are drawn into eight groups of four in the first round. Over four days, everyone plays against everyone else, with the top two qualifying for the round of 16. Fourth and last place in the group still comes with a prize of £5,000 (CHF 5,300), while the winner of the final takes home £150,000. ‘It's the most difficult tournament to qualify for. That's why I'm really excited to be there,’ says Stefan Bellmont, for whom a second World Championship appearance in London (11th December to 3rd January 2026) is currently still somewhat in the background.

Nevertheless, he is already looking forward to 2026. ‘I'm really happy that I don't have to play the Q-School anymore.’ That's where the tour cards are awarded. It's a place of joy, but also of dramatic failure. Fallon Sherrock, multiple World Championship participant and known as the ‘Queen of the Palace’, has been trying for years to win this ticket to the world class. But so far, always in vain. Dutchman Raymond van Barneveld, 58, PDC World Champion in 2007, had to re-earn his tour card at Q-School in 2021 after retiring in 2020 and making a successful comeback in 2021.

15 more tournaments in Europe beckon
Stefan Bellmont will be travelling abroad even more from next year. The 2026 European Tour comprises 15 tournaments in ten countries. The tour will also stop off in Basle again, where Bellmont lost again to Jermaine Wattimena (NED), his 2024 World Championship opponent, in the first round at the end of September. But the Cham native will have to qualify for these tournaments, in which the winner will now receive £35,000 instead of £30,000. ‘I will try to play in all the qualifiers,’ he says.

But first, Stefan Bellmont is enjoying the calm before the storm before he plunges into everyday professional life.