After Fallon Sherrock failed to earn a PDC Tour Card for 2026 at Q-School, Your Site Darts' Laura Turner looks at what's next for the Ally Pally history-maker...
I've said it for years with Q-School, it's very much a bit of a lottery.
It's not a ranked event. Anyone can draw anyone, so it's very much luck of the draw. That's always a big thing for the players. So as well as Fallon Sherrock, there's other big names that missed out this year. The likes of Andreas Harrysson, who had a good run at the World Championship, Steve Beaton trying to get his tour card back.
It is a very tough event to get through. Unfortunately Fallon ran into some really tough competition. Her first match, losing 6-4 to Steve Lennon - he's only just come off the tour himself - and subsequently those other few days just didn't go her way.
But now she's played that, she's got the opportunity if she wants to do it to take up the Challenge Tour again and then just start rebuilding.
It's a difficult one when it comes to Q-School. It's tough. Unfortunately it didn't go her way this time around, but I'm confident she'll bounce back.
She's already back on the oche, she's playing down in Portsmouth this week at a women's week at the Modus Super Series, so the fact she's not lingering over the results and is bouncing back so quickly is a really positive thing.
With Fallon, she's spoken quite openly a few times that she has had issues with health [kidney disease] which have then restricted her opportunities to play in as many events as she'd like, and also to probably dedicate as much time and practice, because quite often she's not 100 per cent, she will be tired.
Events on the PDC side of things, the Women's Series, Challenge Tour, they are quite exhausting. They are long days when you are there and it's long consecutive days.
I think she's very much aware of that. She's had positive news with regards to her health this year and I think in 2026, she's looking to hit the practice board a bit more and start rebuilding.
There is a lot that players deal with away from the oche which fans don't realise, and some are quite happy to openly talk about it.
Fallon has, in her own time, spoken about the struggles she's had away from the oche. And then it's bound to have that knock-on effect, that impact on the way you perform.
The fact you don't even have as much match practice, you haven't been playing as many tournaments, so you're just not match-sharp, you're not quite match-ready.
It's those key opportunities that when you've played a lot and you're winning and you're positive and confident, you can take them. But when you haven't played as many games, it's those key moments that sometimes your timing's all off, it's just a bit too far to get across the line.
I think that's probably where Fallon is at the moment. She's just looking to address those problems now that she's had some more positive news about her health.
Fallon will be a player that says she likes to go under the radar, but obviously her 2019 exploits at the World Championship and backing it up with the run to the quarter-finals at the Grand Slam as well, she was always in the spotlight.
She will always have a weight of expectation when she turns up, especially when she goes back to Alexandra Palace, but I think now what's starting to happen is you've got the likes of Beau Greaves, who's going to be on the PDC Tour in 2026.
People are talking about Greaves a little bit more, and I think Fallon's quite happy with that because then the spotlight's not all on her.
It was a lot of years that she's been flying the flag for women's darts, and she's done a fantastic job at that. She's always been Fallon the trailblazer.
But I think if the spotlight's off her slightly, then perhaps that just gives her a little bit more leeway in terms of how it goes with so much of the press and noise and other things you have to do away from the oche.
Maybe it will allow her to just focus a bit more on the darts in hand.
I'm probably not the best one to give Fallon advice! But I like what I'm hearing from her in terms of the positivity.
For me, it's just very much going back to what she always talks about: hitting that practice board.
She's always worked really hard on the doubles when she was at her absolute peak. She was saying it's always about focusing on the doubles, making sure that end of her game is good because she's always confident when it comes to the scoring phases.
For me, if we've got that 2019 version or even a better version of Fallon Sherrock that we can get back into the game, then it's always a positive. I've got no doubt that she will get back up to those kind of levels.
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