He lost 3–1 in the opening round of the World Championship for the second year in a row in the 2017 event, this time to Daryl Gurney. He knocked out Mick Todd, Dave Chisnall, Robert Thornton, Kyle Anderson and Benito van de Pas at the seventh Players Championship to reach his second PDC semi-final, where he was defeated 6–3 by Kim Huybrechts. He reached third PDC semi-final in Players Championships 17, where he beat Alan Tabern, Berry van Peer, Peter Hudson, Steve Beaton and Justin Pipe, before losing to Kevin Painter 6–3. He qualified for five European Tour events over 2017, failing to make it past the Last 32 in any of them, meaning he did not qualify for the European Championships. He made a third Players Championship semi-final of the year in the final weekend in Barnsley, where he knocked out Ross Twell, Ian White, Kevin Painter, Peter Jacques and Michael Smith, before a 6–2 defeat to Adrian Lewis. This was enough for him to qualify for the Players Championship Finals, as the 29th seed. Wattimena started off with a 6–0 hammering of Keegan Brown, where he averaged almost 97. He saw off Mickey Mansell 6–3 in the next round to move into his first major TV Last 16 appearance. Here, he was defeated 10–9 in a deciding leg by Steve Beaton after a superb comeback from 9–5 down. He picked up £8,000 here, his second biggest pay cheque of his career.