From our great friend Mr Greg Champion comes a song about the Championship match that has gone down in Australian darting history, and the player that prevented the fairytale downunder story from completing its path. (n.b, copyright Greg Champion)

 PDC World Championship Players from Australia and New Zealand:

New Zealand

Alan Bolton 07/08 1 app

Ben Robb 19/20 3 apps

Bernie Smith 17/18 1 app

Cody Harris 17/18 2 apps

Craig Ross 18/19 1 app

Dave Harrington 12/13 1 app

Haupai Puha 20/21 1 app

Koha Kokiri 15/16 1 app

Mark McGrath 14/15 1 app

Phillip Hazel 09/10 1 app

Preston Ridd 10/11 1 app

Rob Szabo 13/14 2 apps

Warren French 06/07 3 apps

Warren Parry 05/06 4 apps
 
Australia

Anthony Fleet 06/07 1 app

Barry Jouannet Jnr 03/04 2 apps

Beau Anderson 13/14 1 app

Brian Roach 05/06 1 app

Corey Cadby 16/17 1 app

Damon Heta 19/20 4 apps

David Platt 02/03 3 apps

Geoff Kime 11/12 1 app

Gordon Mathers 17/18 3 apps

James Bailey 18/19 2 apps

John Weber 14/15 1 app

Ky Smith 21/22 1 app

Kyle Anderson 12/13 7 apps

Laurence Ryder 14/15 2 apps

Lavinia Hogg 10 1 app

Mal Cuming 22/23 1 app

Mitchell Clegg 06/07 1 app

Paul Nicholson 08/09 8 apps

Raymond Smith 18/19 3 apps

Robbie King 19/20 1 app

Russell Stewart 08/09 1 app

Sean Read 11/12 1 app

Shane Tichowitsch 10/11 2 apps

Simon Whitlock 02/03 15 apps

Steve MacArthur 07/08 1 app

 Representation by Year

02/03 Simon Whitlock (David Platt as a UK resident)                                                                                     2 Aus
03/04 Barry Jouanett Jnr                                                                                                                                      1 Aus
04/05 Barry Jouanett Jnr                                                                                                                                      1 Aus
05/06 Brian Roach (David Platt as a UK resident) Warren Parry                                                                   2 Aus 1 NZ
06/07 Mitchell Clegg Anthony Fleet Warren French                                                                                      2 Aus 1 NZ
07/08 Steve MacArthur Alan Bolton Warren Parry                                                                                          1 Aus 2 NZ
08/09 Paul Nicholson Russell Stewart Warren French                                                                                  2 Aus 1 NZ
09/10 Simon Whitlock (finalist) Paul Nicholson Phillip Hazel Warren Parry                                               2 Aus 2 NZ
10 Lavinia Hogg                                                                                                                                                     1 Aus          
10/11 Shane Tichowitsch Simon Whitlock Paul Nicholson Preston Ridd                                                   3 Aus 1 NZ
11/12 Sean Read Geoff Kime Simon Whitlock Paul Nicholson Warren French                                         4 Aus 1 NZ
12/13 Shane Tichowitsch Kyle Anderson Simon Whitlock Paul Nicholson Dave Harrington                 4 Aus 1 NZ
13/14 Beau Anderson Simon Whitlock Paul Nicholson Kyle Anderson Rob Szabo                                 4 Aus 1 NZ
14/15 Laurence Ryder John Weber Simon Whitlock Paul Nicholson Kyle Anderson Mark McGrath   5 Aus 1 NZ
15/16 Laurence Ryder Koha Kokiri Simon Whitlock Kyle Anderson Rob Szabo                                      3 Aus 2 NZ
16/17 Corey Cadby Simon Whitlock Warren Parry David Platt                                                                   3 Aus 1 NZ
17/18 GG Mathers Simon Whitlock Kyle Anderson Bernie Smith Cody Harris                                         3 Aus 2 NZ
                    18/19 James Bailey Craig Ross Cody Harris Simon Whitlock Kyle Anderson Raymond Smith Paul Nicholson                                                                                                                                                                                                           5 Aus 2 NZ
19/20 Simon Whitlock Kyle Anderson Ben Robb Robbie King Damon Heta                                           4 Aus 1 NZ
20/21 Damon Heta GG Mathers James Bailey Haupai Puha Simon Whitlock                                         4 Aus 1 NZ
21/22 Simon Whitlock Damon Heta Raymond Smith Ben Robb Ky Smith Gordon Mathers                5 Aus 1 NZ
22/23 Ben Robb Raymond Smith Damon Heta Simon Whitlock Mal Cuming                                        4 Aus 1 NZ

​The PDC Darts World Championships
Introduction
After the split from the BDO the WDC declared their own world championships for darts. On Boxing Day 1993 the first WDC (to be renamed PDC a few years later after a court settlement) world darts championship began at the Circus Tavern London. From day one it was covered by Sky Sports and has been its entire history.
1993/1994
The WDC held its first championship final in 1994. The event began in late 1993 and finished just after new year, thus crowning the first world champion each year. For the first few events 24 players were placed in 8 groups with group winners progressing to the knockout phase. The 16 original defectors would have played but Mike Gregory and Chris Johns had returned to the BDO fold. Their places were taken by Kevin Burrows and Graeme Stoddart. Despite being born in Newcastle upon Tyne Stoddart actually represented The Netherlands in 1984 (shades of Paul Nicholson) and was invited to come over to the WDC for this tournament. Burrows had been in the BDO since 1989 but this would be his one and only world championship. Seven Americans and Irishman Tom Kirby. The group stages would see three matches played each with the group winners progressing to the quarter finals. Only two seeded players missed this stage, Kirby eliminating John Lowe and American Steve Brown winning through at the expense of Kevin Spiolek. Rod Harrington had been seeded above Eric Bristow and won through against the crafty cockney and American Sean Downs.  Priestley (4-2 over Kirby), Peter Evison (5-1 over Harrington), Phil Taylor (4-2 over Bob Anderson), and Steve Brown (4-2 over Warriner) all won their quarter finals before Priestly (5-3 over Evison) and Taylor (a 5-0 whitewash of Brown) moved through to the final. Dennis Priestley became the first WDC/PDC world champion with a 6 sets to 1 win in the final over Taylor. In the deciding leg of the seventh set Priestly hit 137 to leave 126. With Taylor well behind he threw treble 20 and the bull but missed double 8 with his last dart in hand. He then missed with his next attempt before throwing the double eight that would crown him world champion. This tournament was held at the Circus Tavern located in Purfleet, Essex, as it would until 2007.
1994/1995
Taylor would then roll through 8 WDC / PDC World Championships without a loss. In 1995 he defeated Rod Harrington in the final 6-2. Earlier in the tournament reigning champion Priestley had dropped out in the group stage, his group won by John Lowe. The third man in that group was Jocky Wilson. Wilson did not gain a point and actually never gained a win in the WDC / PDC World championships and at the end of 1995 he stopped playing altogether. Priestly would be one of two seeded players eliminated at the group stage with Dennis Smith finishing ahead of Alan Warriner. Jamie Harvey had replaced John Lowe as a seeded player and thus made it through to the quarter finals. Six Americans had played again, as did Irishman Kirby. Whilst Stoddart played once again, Burrows was replaced by Shayne Burgess. Four Englishmen would make the semi finals after Jamie Harvey lost 4-2 to Rod Harrington. In the other quarters Peter Evison won 4-1 over Kevin Spiolek, Phil Taylor defeated Bob Anderson 4-1 and John Lowe whitewashed Dennis Smith 4-0. The semi results that saw Taylor and Harrington make the final were 5-1 to Harrington over Evison and a much tighter 5-4 result for Taylor over Lowe. Taylor’s ten 180s in this match was the first time in the two-year history of this tournament that a player had thrown double figure 180s in any one match. He still needed an extra leg in the deciding set and a 107 check out to get past Lowe. The final would not reach such heights as Taylor started a long run of being WDC/PDC world champion.
1995/1996
In the 1996 final Taylor avenged his loss two years prior by defeating Dennis Priestley 6-4. For Priestley it would mark the start of three years of final losses as in 1997 he would lose 6-3 to Taylor in the final and then in 1998 the newly named PDC World Championship final saw him lose once more to Taylor, this time in straight sets, 6-0. In the 1996 event the American contingent had dropped to three although Canadian Gary Mawson took one of their positions. Steve Raw and Nigel Justice came in for their debuts in this tournament and Kirkby as well as the remaining BDO rebels kept their places. Five of the seeds made the quarters but Kevin Spiolek ended up last in his group and Bob Anderson missed that knock out stage for the first time. Larry Butler and Rod Harrington’s final match was for top spot and in an eliminating leg both players missed darts to win before Butler held his nerve to win 3-2 (both his matches in the table stage finished 3-2 to him.) Taylor defeated Keith Deller 4-0 before going on to defeat John Lowe 5-1 (Lowe having beaten Peter Evison 4-2 in the previous round.) Dennis Priestley had progressed past Alan Warriner 4-1 before defeating Jamie Harvey in the Scotsman’s only appearance at this stage of the tournament 5-1 (Harvey had defeated Butler 4-0 previously.) Therefore, a classic final rivalry was renewed and in the final, with Taylor 5-4 sets and 2-0 legs up Priestley hit 7 perfect darts before Taylor miscalculated and left 30. Priestley missed two darts at the leg on his next visit and a very unusual double 15 meant Taylor won 6-4 and had retained his World Champion title.
1996/1997
The format remained the same throughout this time but in the 1997 world championships three preliminary qualifiers had been staged (Ritchie Gardner, Paul Lim and Chris Mason all winning, Mason over a name that was about to become famous over the next five years in darts – Peter Manley and Lim taking out the previously ever-present Irishman Kirby.) Therefore, the main draw had four Americans (Lim at this time counting as one), 1 Scotsman and the rest English players. Of the seeds 7 qualified top of their groups, with only Bob Anderson missing out, to Eric Bristow. Anderson and Bristow (and American Mawson) had all won one match 3-1 but Bristow had gone through because of a higher tournament average. Bristow then defeated Alan Warriner 5-3 in the quarter finals. Taylor was more clinical in dismissing Keith Deller 5-1. Peter Evison moved past the previous year semi finalist in Jamie Harvey 5-3 and Priestley saw off Rod Harrington 5-2. In a classic semi final Priestley was taken to a deciding set before overcoming Evison 5-4 whilst in a hall of fame match up Eric Bristow fell 5-3 to Taylor. The final proved to be less close than their previous final as Taylor won 6-3. A 180 at 5-3, 2-1 up saw Taylor leave 81. On his next visit he started with 19 but an inaccurate second dart (going for the treble 12 he hit treble 9) saw Taylor require 35. He took 3 with his last dart to leave double 16. Priestley failed at his attempt of 122, missing the bull for the leg and Taylor stepped up to hit the target with his first dart.
1997/1998
1998 had seen the newly named Professional Darts Corporation hold the newly renamed PDC World Championship. As in 1996 and 1995 all eight seeds were Englishmen and as in all of the previous events not all the seeds made it through to the knockout stage. Another Canadian in John Part joined the party alongside compatriot Mawson. Three Americans remained as did Scotsman Harvey. Englishmen Mick Manning and John Ferrell also made their PDC world championship debuts. Harry Robinson (from Alston in Eden Cumbria) also debuted and had the most success, qualifying for the knockouts on set difference after a 3-0 win over Alan Warriner. Bob Anderson was the other seed to miss out after Shayne Burgess won both his matches 3 sets to 0. Peter Manley also made the quarter finals although these heroics were not yet noticed by many as his star was still rising. Burgess lost 4-0 to Phil Taylor in the quarter finals, Rod Harrington winning by the same score line over Peter Evison. Keith Deller defeated Robinson 4-1 and Dennis Priestley squeezed past Manley 4-3. In the semi finals Phil Taylor made quick work of Harrington 5-1 whilst Priestley did the same job on Keith Deller. The final was one way traffic as Taylor (averaging 103.99 – after averaging 101.85 in his quarter and 103.08 in his semi) won in straight sets over Priestley, 6-0, Taylor finishing with a 104 check out, treble 20, 12 and the double 16 that had handed him his first title defence as well. Taylor, with six world championships, had taken over the title of most wins in the tournament from great mate Bristow.
Throughout these opening five championships a third place play off was usually held:
1994 Steve Brown 5 Peter Evison 1
1995 John Lowe 4 Peter Evison 2
1996 John Lowe and Jamie Harvey did not play off (who would blame then)
1997 Peter Evison 4 Eric Bristow 2 (Evison surely pleased to avenge to losses but probably upset he was continually in these matches)
1998 Rod Harrington 4 Keith Deller 1
1998/1999
1999’s competition saw some big names make the quarter finals, including Taylor, Cliff Lazarenko, Alan Warriner, Bob Anderson and Carlisle’s own Peter Manley (he was actually born in London but called Carlisle home.) The event no longer had group stages and 32 players were involved in a straight knock out event. The third-place match was also abandoned, Rod Harrington having beaten Deller in the last of them in 1998. Harrington would be world number one at this tournament but would fall 3-1 to Shayne Burgess in the second round. Dennis Priestley would not even make it to the second round after losing to John Ferrell 3-0. Four Americans took place in the finals with regulars Steve Brown, Gerald Verrier and Sean Downs joined by Dan Lauby, but Paul Lim was back representing Singapore instead of the US, and three Canadians (Scott Cummings joining Mawson and Part) were in the field.  The rest of the entrants were Englishmen (including two debutants in Alex Roy and Dean Allsop) except for Scotsman Jamie Harvey. The round of 16 saw Harry Robinson fall to Alan Warriner and the man from the Eden Valley would not step behind a darting world championship oche again. The quarter finals were an all-English affair. Shayne Burgess (4-1 over Cliff Lazarenko), Peter Manley (4-0 over Dennis Smith), Alan Warriner (4-1 over John Ferrell who had made this stage for the first time) and Taylor (4-0 over Bob Anderson.) The semifinals saw Taylor eliminate Warriner 5-3 and Manley defeat Burgess 5-4 (the overall leg count of 21-18 demonstrating just how close the match was.) In the final Manley lost 6-2 to Taylor and the win streak for The Power continued, his world championship title count now up to seven.
1999/2000
In 2000 Priestly made his fourth final in five years only to lose to Taylor 7-3, his fourth loss to Taylor in the final in those years. As in the previous year Taylor was not seeded one, this time Peter Manley was. The competition was again for 32 players and the field consisted of many familiar names, but debuting were Englishmen Colin Lloyd and Reg Harding. Also joining the field was a Dutchman (although he was actually Spanish born) for the first time, Braulio Roncero. He only played one match in one world championship (losing in a deciding set 3-2 to Dennis Priestley) but the Dutch would one day make their mark on this competition. Priestley went on to make the quarter finals as did countrymen Peter Evison, Peter Manley, Shayne Burgess, Phil Taylor, John Lowe, Alan Warriner and Dennis Smith. The quarter finals saw Peter Manley defeat namesake Evison 5-1, Taylor whitewash Warriner 5-0, Priestley survive yet another deciding set, this time against Shayne Burgess 5-4 and Dennis Smith defeat John Lowe 5-0, in Lowe’s 23rd consecutive BDO / PDC championship. Another man who held that record was Eric Bristow but his first-round loss to American Steve Brown was the last time he played in a world championship. The semi finals saw the two men who had lost to Taylor in finals play off against each other and it would be Priestley who would get a chance at revenge after defeating Manley 5-3. Taylor wiped the floor with Smith, winning 5-0. The final had been extended to first to seven sets (in other words best of 13 sets) and Priestley at least avoided his whitewash of two years previous, but he could not beat the man who up until the final had averaged over 103 in every match. Taylor’s average may have dropped to 94 but his finishing was clinical as he put Priestley away 7-3. Taylor now had held a world championship trophy eight times.
2000/2001
Just as in the previous year, the 2001 world championship saw Peter Manley seeded number one for the event (it meant Taylor in the 8-tournament history had only been ranked first twice, in 1998 and 1996 despite winning the tournament 7 of the 8 times) but he failed to get past the first round, losing 3-2 to Jamie Harvey. Harvey made it to the quarter finals, losing 4-0 to Dave Askew. In another section of the draw Canadian John Part (having seen off Alan Warriner 4-1 in their quarter final) survived a tight semifinal, defeating Rod Harrington in the deciding leg to win 6-5. Harrington had defeated Roland Scholten, the second Dutchman to have played in the PDC world championship and the first from his country to secure a win in the competition (he secured two 3-0 wins against big name players Shayne Burgess and Cliff Lazarenko.) The Dutchman had not been the only debutant, in a tournament that starred one Canadian, John Parts countryman Gayl King made her debut losing 3-1 to Graeme Stoddart, but in doing so became the first woman to play in this tournament, although not the only one in the decade. Gary Spedding and Denis Ovens were both first round losing debutants (Spedding competing in only one BDO, 2000, and one PDC world championship tournament whilst Denis Ovens was beginning his 13-year run in this tournament.) Ovens lost to another English debutant, Les Fitton 3-1 but Fitton would fall to Taylor by the same score in the next round. The other debutant was Richie Burnett but unlike his debut in the World Championships in the BDO in 1995, when he was crowned world champion, he did not progress as far. He did win his first match, 3-0 against Steve Brown, but fell to Keith Deller, losing the deciding leg and 3-2 in the next round. Deller would fall to the Taylor express 4-0 in their quarter final clash before Taylor did the same to Askew in the semifinal. The final was all Taylor as he won it 7-0 losing only 3 legs to Death Maple John Part along the way and redressing the average situation from the year before by securing a 107.46, his best average of the tournament. In fact, he would not lose a set in the final for two years straight. He had only lost one set (to the debutant Fitton in round two!) in the whole of the 2001 World Championships.
2001/2002
Part and Taylor would meet again the following year, in 2002, this time in the quarter finals and the punishment was the same – a Taylor whitewash, albeit 6-0 instead of 7 sets. Other quarter finals saw 2000 debutant Colin Lloyd and 2001 debutant Richie Burnett face off against each other, with Lloyd coming away victorious by 6 sets to 4. Dave Askew defeated Dennis Priestley 6-2 in their quarter final. Ronnie Baxter, on debut, had made it to the quarter finals at the first attempt but lost to Manley 6-2. Baxter had defeated another debutant for this tournament, future finalist Kevin Painter, 4-2. Having had such a proud history in the tournament the American contingent was down to just one, Steve Brown, as was Canada with John Part. Paul Lim continued to represent Singapore, Jamie Harvey Scotland and after his success of 2001 Roland Scholten was back. Chris Mason returned to the championships for the first time since 1997 whilst former BDO World Champion Steve Beaton had a successful debut, defeating Bob Anderson 4-3 before falling to Part 6-0 in the second round. Matt Chapman, Andy Jenkins and Paul Williams were other Englishmen who debuted at the event, but they did not get a win between them in their first tournament appearance. It would be Chapman’s only match in the championships as he never returned to that stage. The semifinals saw Taylor defeat 6-0 whilst Manley survived a tighter affair when he beat Colin Lloyd 6-4. For the second year in a row Taylor had not lost a leg in the quarter or semi stages of the tournament, the question being could he do the same in the final again? The answer was in the affirmative as he cleaned house with Manley to win 7-0. Manley would secure five legs but not gain a triple figure check out in any of them. After the match there was controversy as the commentators said Manley had seemingly refused to shake the hand of Taylor. Shortly after Manley returned to the stage and shook Taylor’s hand but the type was cast, and Manley would be booed for years after, and a rivalry was ignited. Later in his career the crowd would boo Manley more in jest, but it was certainly vicious for a time after that final. This was the first event where PDC prize money was greater than BDO prize money for a world championship.
2002/2003
The 2003 event came around and the field was expanded to 40 players and finally the countries from downunder would be represented, as they would be in every tournament since. Mark Holden would make his debut in the tournament after defeating Dave Smith in their qualifying match. Other qualifying wins went to previous entrants Bob Anderson, Mick Manning, Shayne Burgess and Reg Harding. Wayne Mardle, also on debut, defeated American Reg Carver before going on and defeating Peter Evison in the first-round proper (Stuart Pyke made his commentating world championship debut in this tournament, a man Mardle would one day share the comm box with.) Losing players in the preliminary round were debutants Arjan Moen (from The Netherlands), Lee Palfreyman, and Mark Robinson. Jamaican representative and former BDO British Open winner Al Hedman lost 4-0 to Bob Anderson in the preliminary round. Hedman only appeared in one PDC world championship and in 2021 his sister, Deta, equaled this record. (Deta Hedman also played in the 2010 PDC Women’s world championship.) There were to be two names that became synonymous with Australian darts, one Australian and one not Australian yet, who also played in the preliminary round. Simon Whitlock made his world championship debut, two years before he started on his BDO World Championship heroics. David Platt, having not yet migrated to Perth, also played for a spot in the main draw, against Phil Taylor as it happened. It was not to be as Platt lost 4-2 to the man who had beaten Eric Bristow in his last world championship match, and who had been a part of every tournament to that point, US star Steve Brown. As with his debut in the BDO some two years later Whitlock won his opening match, defeating Englishman Paul Williams 4-2 in the first round. Whitlock would then upset the losing finalist of 2002 in Peter Manley 4-1 in the next round before falling to Welsh darting legend Richie Burnett in the round of 16. Burnett would go on to lose to Kevin Painter before Painter lost to John Part 6-4 in their semifinal. With Taylor having dismissed the challenge of Steve Brown 4-1, and won tighter battles against Wayne Mardle and Dennis Smith (both 5-3), he almost wiped the floor with Alan Warriner (6-1) in their semifinal. Warriner had made it to that match by defeating dutchman Roland Scholten 5-2, the Flying Dutchman’s second quarter final in three attempts! If Taylor won his 45th match in a row he would be champion for nine successive years. Canadian Part led 4 sets to 1 but it was a tighter match after that (Taylor went to a 5-4 lead) before going to a final set decider after the match reached 6-6. Therefore, John Gwynne and Sid Waddell called the final legs with Russ Bray the referee. In the first leg Taylor missed tops and John Part hit 20 then 20 then double 16 to check out 72 for the break. He then threw for the second leg of the set. Taylor missed the double 16 to check out 105 in the next leg with Part requiring 15. Part hit seven and double four to move to within a leg of the upset. Taylor then held throw to put the pressure on the Part throw (Taylor checked out with double 12 to get 98 and leave Part on 82.) Part opened with an 85 as Taylor responded with 140. Taylor had to check out 121 with Part on 77. Treble 18 with his second dart saw Taylor have a shot at the leg but he missed the bull. Part stepped up and hit 19, 18 and tops to win the Final and became a World Champion in both a BDO and PDC World Championship, as had Taylor and Priestley before him.
2003/2004
For the 2004 world championship things seemed to return to normal as Taylor made the final once more. The field had been expanded to 48 players with the top 16 ranked players given a bye until the third round. Those top 16 included Taylor at 1, Canadian and reigning world champion Part at 2, Manley at 3 and Flying Dutchman Scholten at 4. The other 12 included 1 Scotsman (Jamie Harvey), 1 Welshman (Richie Burnett) and ten Englishmen, all of whom had played in this tournament before, with former world champion Dennis Priestley rounding out the group at 16. Barry ‘China’ Jouannet Jnr represented Australia in the event but lost 3-2 to Alex MacKay of Scotland. A swathe of new players came into the competition including the first Guyanan, Belgian and Japanese representatives. At the bottom of the draw Manley defeated Welshman Wayne Allwood 4-3 before defeating Keith Deller 4-2. He then lost 5-2 in the quarter finals to a resurgent Bob Anderson who had already defeated Andy Jenkins (4-1) and Dennis Smith (4-3) and therefore made his first world championship semifinal for 13 years and was looking to win his first semifinal since the 1988 BDO World Championships at Lakeside, a tournament he went on to win. He would face Kevin Painter who had made his second semi final in two years after defeating Mark Dudbridge 5-1 in the quarter finals. (Dudbridge’s debut in the tournament amazing, but not as stunning as his performance a year later.) Anderson lost to Painter 6-0, but he would be back at this stage twelve months later. Mardle could not overcome Taylor looking to return to being PDC World Champion, the semifinal going to Taylor over Mardle 6-2. Therefore, Phil Taylor made another final. The first set went to a deciding leg and a double 16 with last dart in hand moved Painter 1-0 ahead in sets. Taylor stood behind requiring 8 in the deciding leg of the next step and watched as Painter hit a single 20 chasing a 100 check out. Painter then hit two double 20s to move two sets up. The third set then went to a third deciding leg and Painter chased 122. He hit treble 18 but then hit a single 1 and despite a good third dart it looked like Taylor would get the 76 required. Taylor missed tops for it but Painter spurned three chances at 16 and Taylor secured the set at his next visit. Painter won the next set 2 legs to 1 before Taylor missed another check out dart in the fourth leg to take the set and instead Painter had the darts to chase the deciding leg. He hit the required 102 with a double 16 and Taylor requiring 80. For the second year running Taylor was 4-1 down in a PDC world championship final. The next set saw Taylor 2-1 up, but Painter checked out 143 (finishing with another double 16) to move to another decider. Taylor missed tops to check out a 107 but Painter missed the bull for a 93 check out. Taylor cleaned up to move back to 4-2 in sets. Despite giving Painter more check out darts in the next set Taylor hit a double 6 to clean sweep the seventh set and move the score to 4-3. The eighth set went to another deciding leg. Taylor moved from 96 to 18 with a 78 and gave Painter a chance of a 116 check out for the leg and the set. Painter could not even get to a check out dart (leaving 56) before Taylor left 4 at his next visit. With last dart in hand Painter got the double 20 to lead 5-3, in what looked at the time like the critical leg, even Sid Waddell saying with the leg and set win Painter could see the sheen on the cup. Taylor then won the next set 3 legs to 1 including an 82 check out of bull, double 16 for the fourth leg. Taylor changed his shirt and soon after comprehensively won the next set 3-0 to move the back to parity. For many the momentum would be too much for Painter to arrest. The next set went to a deciding leg which was won in ten darts by Taylor and now he was just one leg away from another world championship (he had secured 109 plus as his average in that eleventh set.) Double 20 in the fourth leg of the next set moved the match into a deciding set at 6-6. Painter missed 8 darts at a checkout double in the opening leg and Taylor pounced. However, he did not capitalise in the next leg as he missed three darts at a check out in the next leg and with a bull finish Painter checked out 126 (19 and treble 19 before the bull) to draw back to 1 leg all in the deciding set. A double six then moved Painter one leg from victory. Painter had a chance at 160 in the next leg but did not get to a checkout and with double 19 it was a level game once more. Painter missed four darts at double 16 before Taylor missed one of his own. A double 8 and Painter was ahead much more. In the next leg with Taylor on 98 Painter had 3 darts at a 124 finish for the championship. He could only collect 56 and had to watch Taylor threw treble 20 and double 19 to draw back to 3 legs all. Painter then missed bull for a 126 finish before Taylor missed double 16 for a 68 check out and a double 8 with last dart in hand put Painter up once more. Taylor had to hold his nerve once more and tied things up once more with a treble 14 double 16 two dart response as Painter stood behind him on 32. Painter started with a 140 in the next leg but failed to check out 56. Taylor failed to check out 161 and held throw with a double 5 to draw a leg again once more. Taylor started with a 147 in the next leg and converting 56 with last dart in hand to close off the leg. The match went to a deciding leg and Taylor won the bull at the second attempt. Taylor started with just a 45 but 59 from Painter did not put him far enough ahead. A ton from Taylor was not matched by Painter with 60. Visits of 99 and 60 by both players left Taylor well ahead. 140 left Taylor on 117 as Painter finally hit a treble but only collect 100 left him on 222. Taylor hit treble 20 and 17 but missed tops for the championship. 94 from Painter left him needing 128 but Taylor was inside the double 20 and then inside the double 10 before hitting double 5 to avoid a repeat of the previous year, and thus defeat Kevin Painter 7-6 and win yet another World Championship title. In his mind at least order restored, albeit ever so close. What was more amazing is how quickly such a great match was forgotten by some once 2007 came around.
2004/2005
2005 came around and Mark Dudbridge, who had made the quarter finals the previous year, became just another victim of Phil Taylor in the era after Taylor defeated him 7-4 in the final. Along the way, though, he created quite a story in only his second year in the competition. Two notable first round entrants on debut were Andy Hamilton and James Wade. Hamilton was victorious in both round one and two, but Wade lost at the first hurdle, to Mark Holden. Also on debut was Wes Newton but he went straight into round two but fell victim at the first attempt to Canadian Gerry Convery. Australia’s China Jouanett lost his second successive round one match, losing 3-0 to Wayne Jones. Jones went on to defeat Keith Deller in the second round. In that same second round another big name fell by the wayside, that of John Lowe. Lowe lost to Canadian John Verwey, the match going to an 11th leg tie breaking leg in the deciding set. For Lowe it would end his run of 28 world championships, having played in all of them since 1978 (either BDO or then WDC/PDC from 1994.) He failed to qualify for the next world championships and tried each year through to 2008 but failed to qualify on each occasion. Peter Evison, who had played every WDC/PDC World Championship and apart from 1993 been playing in World Championships since 1988 won his second-round match 3-0 over Mark Landers but fell in the next round to Andy Jenkins 4-0. It would mark his last match in the world championships as well. Newcomer Andy Hamilton was having better luck, defeating Steve Beaton 4-2 in round 3 and newcomer Josephus Schenk of The Netherlands 4-1 in the round of 16. He met Bob Anderson in the quarter final but the man who had already eliminated Dennis Smith (4-2) and Ronnie Baxter (4-2) proved to good for the Hammer on the day, winning 5-1. The real story was Dudbridge as he dismissed two former world champions in Richie Burnett and John Part in rounds 2 and 3 (4-3 and 4-2 respectively.) He then defeated Denis Ovens 5-3 to make the semi finals in his second year of asking. Wayne Mardle, meanwhile, was cutting through the top of the draw, putting Mark Walsh (4-2), Paul Williams (4-3), and Colin Lloyd (5-4) to the sword, albeit all close encounters. Remarkably both Bob Anderson and Wayne Mardle would be in their second successive semifinals, and both would come away worse off again (Anderson 6-2 to Taylor and Mardle 6-4 to Dudbridge, along the way in the seventh set third leg Dudbridge hit 7 perfect darts but missed the double 19 for a shot at double 12 and a nine darter.) Taylor had arrived in the semifinal after a fairly straight forward road but one tinged with controversy. He had beaten Alex Roy and old foe Dennis Priestley in straight sets (4-0). He now faced another former finalist in Kevin Painter. Throughout the match Painter had attempted to hit the bull as a check out, not with much success. At the end of the match Taylor needed 50 and went straight for the bull with first dart in hand, which he got. Taylor collected the bull for the leg, the set and the match (5-1), which infuriated Painter who felt his opponent was taunting him, another modern-day rivalry was born, although some will point to it beginning when he won the World Grand Prix over Taylor in 2001 or even the world championship final the year before. Whatever the case Painter was out of the competition and Taylor into another semifinal. Thus, after Taylor and Dudbridge’s win in the semi finals they face off in another best of 13 encounter. The final certainly was not the classic encounter it was unfortunate enough to be nestled between (excluding 2006 of course!) Taylor came from 2-1 legs down to win the first set and then with missed doubles Dudbridge returned the match to parity after the next set and then won the next to move 2-1 in front, including a 161 check out. Dudbridge missed tops for the leg and the fourth set and two darts later Taylor hit double 6 to return the match to parity. Taylor soon led 3-2 after a clean sweep of legs in the fifth, meaning he had won five legs in succession. Dudbridge moved two legs clear in the next set before Taylor drew back level. The man from Bristol held his nerve to tie the match back up after six sets. Taylor punished Dudbridge for misses in the seventh set and won it 3-0 with a treble 20 double 20 pair of darts capping it off. On throw Taylor’s next set went to a deciding leg but his opponent could not break him in the fifth game and with a 128 check out The Power was 5-3 up. Taylor was 2 legs up and then check out a 121 and then a 144 (with Taylor behind him needing 16) to stay in the set but Taylor won the 5th leg to take the set anyway and lead 6-3. Dudbridge won the next set 3 legs to 1 but a 104 check out in third leg of the next set and Taylor was throwing for the match. A 60 start was followed by a 140 and then 100 from Taylor. A second ton left Taylor requiring 101 and with treble 19, 12 and double 16 Taylor was crowned world darts champion a 12th time.
2005/2006
The 2006 world championships saw the field expand to 64 players and include a Kiwi entrant for the first time as Warren Parry represented New Zealand. Brian Roach appeared for Australia for the first time at a PDC World Championship, only the third Australian to do so to that point. Parry lost to Englishman Mark Walsh 3-0 in the opening round whilst Roach could only take a set off Wayne Mardle and lost 3-1. Mardle then eliminated Eric Clarys in the second round after the Belgian had defeated the first Barbados representative at the championships, Winston Cadogan 3-0, in their opening round clash. John Part and Alan Warriner were Mardle’s next victims, including a quarter final whitewash for Mardle. David Platt, still not having emigrated, lost to Phil Taylor 3-0 in the first round. Taylor then defeated Matt Clark 4-1 before eliminating another local from around Stoke, Andy Hamilton, 4-0. Taylor would then see off Kevin Painter (who had eliminated previous finalist Mark Dudbridge by beating him 4-1 in the previous round) in the quarter finals 5-1 in a renewal of the rivalry. Taylor and Mardle played out a semifinal thriller. Mardle was confident having won his quarter final against Warriner 5-0 and pushed Taylor all the way including leading the match 5 set to 4 but the world champion won the final two sets including the last one 3 legs to 1 and therefore the match 6-5. The other semifinal saw the man who eliminated Aussie Jouanett in round one the previous year go head-to-head with Peter Manley. Wayne Jones had won his quarter final over debutant Gary Welding 5-0 whilst Manley defeated another debutant Adrian Lewis 5-3. Lewis had beaten Dave Honey in his only world championship match 3-0, then former world champion Dennis Priestley 4-2, and Dutch veteran Roland Scholten 4-3. Many at the time would have doubted this young man would end up winning more world championship titles than Manley but he would do just that over the next few years. The Manley Jones affair was a clean sweep as Manley won 6-0 and moved into the final with good momentum and a lot of confidence as Taylor had played out such an emotionally draining semifinal. The final was a whitewash but not a payback one on Taylor, but a repeat on Manley. Where he had taken five legs off Taylor in 2002, he took six this time around. He could also claim Taylor to be in finer form because whilst Manley’s average was about the same in both finals (around 91) Taylor increased his from 98.47 to 106.47, the second highest of any final up until that point of time. Taylor had completed another hat trick of successive world championship titles, the pain of losing to Part four years previous either numbed or driving him onto further success as probably were the rivalries he had built up along the way.
2006/2007
The Circus Tavern would host the PDC World Championships for just one more year, the 2007 competition. The Order of Merit (top 32) that year included only held four names that were not English, Barrie Bates of Wales, World Champion of 2003 John Part, and Dutchmen Roland Scholten (4) and Raymond van Barneveld (just in at 32.) Barneveld’s ranking was a bit deceptive because 12 months previous he had been playing in the final of the BDO World Championships. Barney would defeat the youngest player ever in a PDC world championship, Australia’s own Mitchell Clegg, three sets to nil in the opening round. He would then progress past Colin Lloyd, Rico Vonck and Alan Tabern (5-0) to make the semifinals where he defeated Andy Jenkins 6-0. To that point the only three sets he had dropped were all to Lloyd in the second round. Jenkins had defeated Adrian Lewis in the third round, Lewis having seen off Wayne Jones in the previous round and Australia’s other representative Tony Fleet 3-0 in the opening round. In the bottom half Kiwi Warren French lost to rising star James Wade 3-1 in his first-round clash. Wade got past debutant Dave Ladley in Ladley’s only world championship by winning a deciding leg, and thus the match 4 set to 3, but Wade lose his third-round match in the same manner to Terry Jenkins. Jenkins, not related to Andy Jenkins (although by 2009 the two names would be infamously linked) then lost to Andy Hamilton 5-4. The Hammer and The Power were to meet once more after Hamilton had defeated Gary Welding 3-0 in round one (Welding’s last appearance), then a PDC world champion finalist in Mark Dudbridge 4-3 in the second and a former world champion in Dennis Priestley 4-1 in the third round to set up his match in the quarters with Jenkins. The Taylor Hamilton semifinal produced a clear winner as Taylor defeated Hamilton 6-0, thus making another final. Remarkably Hamilton threw 46 180s for the tournament, beaten only by Raymond van Barneveld’s 51 but the Dutchman would play an extra match. He might have been full of confidence out of this match, but Taylor would go on and lose the final in a deciding leg to van Barneveld in what many dub the greatest PDC World Championship final ever, some even claim it to be the best darts match ever. Taylor comfortably won the first set 3-0 and before too soon he was 3-0 sets ahead as well, could a repeat of 2006 be on the cards? For van Barneveld he must have been thinking about how Klassen had beaten him in the final of the BDO World Championships the previous year. A 170 finish should have helped relieve the nerves as it gave the Dutchman his first set and he backed it up to win the next one as well. Taylor went 4-2 ahead before Barney moved back to within a set once more.  At 2-2 in the next set Barney left a 156 check out (the third time in that set) but he missed it and Taylor checked out 68 to move to within two legs of the match at 5 sets to 3. After the break van Barneveld won three successive sets to lead 6-5. Taylor then was 2-1 behind in the 12th set but won the next two legs to take the match to a deciding set. Barney threw first in the opening leg of that set and Russ Bray called 180 on his first visit. Barney led 1-0 and 2-1 legs in the set, but Taylor came back on both occasions. Barney moved to 3-2 but the PDC rules at the time said he had to win by two clear legs from 2-2 in a deciding set. Taylor held for 3-3 only for his opponent to move 4-3 ahead in the next leg. With last dart in hand and his Dutch opponent standing behind him requiring double 18 for the World Championship Taylor hit double four to move the match to 4-4. With both players needing 40 in the next leg van Barneveld was the first to collect it and moved 5-4 ahead. Taylor had to hold throw but chose not to try and check out with the bull with Barney requiring 170. Would his great mentor Eric Bristow’s ill fortune fall upon Taylor? Barney had done it already once in the match and hit treble 20 with his first dart but his second was too high and Taylor hit the required double 16 with his next dart. The sudden death leg saw Barney ask Taylor’s opening dart at the bull (in the 25 sector) be left in and the Dutchman used it to make the bull for himself. It demonstrated he was in the right head space to play the final leg, and so it would prove to be. In his opening visit a ton from Barney was bettered by a maximum from Taylor. Barney then matched it with a 180 of his own to heap pressure on Taylor and it seemed to work as the master could only collect 40. 105 from Barney left 116 as Taylor only moved to 148. A treble 20 and 16 gave Barney a fifth championship point but he missed. Taylor left 90 and Barney stepped up to the oche and hit tops with his first dart. He matched Eric Bristow’s five world championships with that win and as did Priestley, Taylor and Part before him, became both BDO and PDC world championship winners. It was a remarkable match to finish things off at the Circus Tavern.
2007/2008
The 2008 championship saw the debut of the tournament at the Alexandra Palace, although darts had been held at the venue with the News of the World Darts Championship had been held there from 1963 to 1977. For the first time in the tournament history two Kiwis were a part of the tournament with Warren Parry returning (as Oceanic Masters champion) and Alan Bolton joining him. Steve MacArthur was the Australian representative. The field expanded to 68 players (including the first Indian player in Ashfaque) and thus a preliminary round was played with Alan Bolton losing to Erwin Extercatte 5 legs to 0 (Ashfaque losing by the same score line to Shi Yongsheng). Parry and Macarthur were both in the bottom quarter of the main draw. James Wade beat Macarthur 3-0 and Alex Roy defeated Parry 3-2 in their opening round clashes, both Roy and Wade would become Part victims later in the tournament. Phil Taylor (who had been already taken to a deciding leg by a young Dutch debutant called Michael van Gerwen in the first round, eventually winning 3-2) lost in a quarter final clash to an emotional Wayne Mardle, 5-4, to miss the final for the first time in PDC / WDC World Championship history. Mardle then went on to play qualifier Kirk Shepherd in the semifinals, Shepherd having defeated Terry Jenkins 3-2, Mick McGowan 4-3, Barrie Bates 4-2 and Peter Manley 5-4 to get there. Shepherd upset Mardle in the semifinal 6-4, completing the match with a 72 check out that took the deciding leg of the tenth set and avoided another deciding set for Shepherd. Reflecting on his results thus far he probably would have been okay in a final leg decider though. Shepherd became the youngest player to ever make the PDC world championship final when he played it at just 21 years and 88 days old. He would meet John Part who returned to his fourth World Championship final, remarkably at his third venue, given the relative few venue changes there have been. In his part of the draw Part had seen off James Wade in the quarter finals 5-4 (checking out 113 to complete the match) whilst in the same round Kevin Painter won 5-2 over another young star in Adrian Lewis who had made his second quarter final in his first three world championships (and a third-round appearance in between.) Part defeated Painter 6-2 in their semifinal between two former finalists with Part finishing the match with another triple figure check out, this time 130 (treble 20, treble 20 double 5.) He made sure the final was not a repeat of the previous close affair he had won and defeated Shepherd 7-2 to collect his third world championship. Part won the first set having won a deciding leg with his opponent on 128, he cleaned up 80 in two darts. He won the next set 3-1 and then won the next set even more emphatically 3-0. He completed the next set with the same leg score, securing a final 86 check out on the bull. Thus 4-0 up and a long way back for Shepherd. The youngster would look to revive his fortunes in the next set and at 2-2 he lined up a shot at 32. He missed two at the double and watched as his third hit his previous two darts and landed on the floor. Part missed his one dart at double 16 and Shepherd got his dart in to the double 8 required having blocked much of the target with his previous two darts. 4-1 to Part. The next set went to a deciding leg and Part missed the bull for the leg. Shepherd could only move from 150 to 90 and a double 8 gave Part a 5-1 lead. The youngster fought back from 2-1 down in the next set but in the deciding leg it looked like the Canadian had it when his first two darts whittled his target score down from 106 to 32. Part went inside the target to lead 16, but Shepherd was a long way back on 160. The brash youngster took on the challenge and 3 darts later was back to within 3 legs of the two-time world champion. That was all the success he would have in terms of sets in the match though, with Part winning the next set 3-1 (completing it with another 80 check out although this one took 3 darts) and winning the ninth and what would be the final set (but not without some drama as it went to a deciding leg but then missed to match darts at tops before Shepherd failed to secure 40 of his own in three darts the next visit before Part secured a double ten with last dart in hand to win 7-2.) Part would end his career having won his last 3 World Championship finals across three venues.
2008/2009
The 2009 competition saw both Part and Shepherd lose in the first round. A Hungarian would debut in the competition for the first time, Nandor Bezzeg losing his losing his match to Vincent van der Voort 3-0 in round one. With Kiwi Warren French having won his qualifying round match 5-3 over Japanese Akihiro Nagakawa three downunder players made the main draw with Paul Nicholson and Russell Stewart having already qualified. The three ended up being in the same eighth of the draw. Another player in the draw was Anastasia Dobromyslova, the reigning BDO women’s champion at the time. She lost her match Dutch player Remco van Eijden 2-0 but would return to play in the women’s world championships in the PDC the following year and play once more in this tournament in 2019. At the time she was the second ever female entrant to play in this tournament. Adrian Lewis took care of Aussie legend Stewart 3 sets to 1 before falling 4-3 to Nicholson in the next round, the first time Lewis had not made the third round in his career at this tournament. Nicholson had eliminated Adrian Gray 3-0 in the first round. Former world champion Dennis Priestley was Nicholson’s next victim (4-2) after Priestley had beaten John MaGowan 4-1 and Kiwi Warren French 3-0 in rounds two and one respectively. Nicholson became the first downunder player to win a round of 16 match in the PDC World Championships (his future World Cup partner Simon Whitlock had lost at that stage in his debut year of 2003.) Nicholson lost to James Wade 5-3 in the quarter finals. Wade was then set to take on Raymond van Barneveld in the semifinals as the Barney and Phil Taylor returned to their winning ways after the shock, or relatively early, exits the previous year. Van Barneveld had driven a path through Mark Stephenson (3-0), Wes Newton (4-1), Ronnie Baxter (4-3) and the man that had put him to the sword in the world championship final of 2006 (at the time this man was 2 days older than Shepherd would be in making the 2008 final) Jelle Klassen (5-1) in their quarter final. That match would also see something happen in the PDC world championships for the very first time, remarkable considering there had been 15 years of events at this point. In the second leg of the sixth set Barney won with a 9 darter (180, 180, 141.) Taylor had come across another Dutchman on his way to the final, for the second year running beating van Gerwen (4-0 in round 2) before defeating Co Stompe 5-0 in the quarter finals. It had been quite a tournament for the Dutch as 7 of their 8 representatives won matches, the only man to miss out was the one with the most experience at this tournament, Roland Scholten. Over the next few years he would only secure one more win in this championship. In between the two Dutchman the draw fell that way again as Taylor and Painter renewed their rivalry in the World Championships, with Taylor winning once more, 4-1. Mervyn King was the fourth semi finalist after taking down veteran Dennis Smith 4-1 in the fourth round and stopping the run of Welshman Barrie Bates, who to that point had seemed partially motivated by his shock loss to Kirk Shepherd in his previous campaign. King put an end to that with a 5-2 victory to put him head-to-head with Taylor in the semis. Taylor was comprehensive in his 6-2 win over King whilst van Barneveld did not have it all his own way against Wade but ended up winning 6-4 in their semifinal. Despite the previews recalling 2007 this was final was at a different venue and was a different match and saw a different winner than two years prior. Taylor quickly went to a two-set lead before he missed double 8 to win the third set in the deciding leg. Van Barneveld pounced to hit double 5 with his second dart and move the match 2-1. He would have no further sets notched up to his name as Taylor used the third as motivation to complete the rest of the match without conceding a set. There were nervy moments in the next set though as the deciding leg saw Taylor miss a dart at double 8 and double 4 for the set and Barney stepped up to try and secure a 66 check out of his own but he missed double 18 and then double 9. Taylor won the critical leg, and at the end of the match this was the point looked back upon and asked what might have been had it gone 2-2. The next set did go to a deciding leg, but Taylor scored 81 in to darts to avoid van Barneveld having a shot at a 110 checkout. 4-1 to Taylor and the Power heading towards a stunning average as well. A double 12 in the deciding leg of set six went to Taylor. Despite the score line reading 5 sets to 1 it could have been very different as the last four sets had gone to a deciding leg with each time the opponent on a check out. The next set did not go that way, though, as Taylor came from 1-0 down to win the set 3 legs to 1. The eighth leg returned to type though as it went to a deciding leg and with Barney needing 170 Taylor stepped up to attempt another 81 checkout. As so often before he hit treble 19 with his first dart and the double 12 with his second was especially sweet as it gave him the world championship thanks to a 7-1 win. As an added bonus the dart secured a world record average in a PDC final at 110.94, a record that still stands. (Taylor had averaged over 100 in every round except the first for the 2009 tournament.) It was Taylor’s 14th world championship and his first in 3 years, the first time he had that distance between titles since 1995.
2009/2010
The 2010 edition would see mainstream attention downunder for darts and a whole new generation of players begin to rise. Taylor would make another final but it was his opponent who would make all the news downunder. Simon Whitlock was one of four players from Australia or New Zealand (joining Paul Nicholson and Kiwis Warren Parry and Phillip Hazel) in the tournament. Hazel lost his preliminary round match to Slovenian Osmann Kijamet 4-2 (legs) and thus did not join the other three in the opening round. Paul Nicholson lost 3-2 to Terry Jenkins in round one and therefore could not repeat his heroics of the previous year. Warren Parry had to play Raymond van Barneveld in the same round and lost 3-0. Simon Whitlock, in his return to the championships since his BDO run, won his opening round match 3-1 over Colin Osborne and then matched his 2003 effort by winning his second-round match, defeating Wayne Jones 4-0 (a man who had a solid record against Australian opponents in World Championships.) In the round of 16 Whitlock saw off Nicholson’s conqueror in Terry Jenkins 4-2 to set up a quarter final clash with James Wade. The Englishman, coming off a semi final appearance the previous year, had defeated Steve Brown 3-1 in the opening round before defeating Michael van Gerwen 3-1 (despite not beating Wade or Taylor yet van Gerwen had collected the scalp of Peter Wright, in the opening round of the 2010 competition – they would end up replaying this match at the other end of the world championships twice.) Wade then went on Andy Hamilton in a deciding set. Whitlock would defeat Wade 5-3 and hold a 105.37 average in the match. The Wizard of Oz would then shock the world by winning a deciding set to win 6-5 against previous finalist van Barneveld. In the deciding set Whitlock had held throw in the first leg before Barney did the same in the second. A 180 from each player in the middle of the next leg left them both on checkouts, but both missed at their next visits and Whitlock was able to finally hold throw and lead 2-1. Chasing 164 Whitlock could only collect 104 to give his opponent a shot at a ton checkout to put the match back on even terms. Van Barneveld threw 60, 20 and 10 and Whitlock took the open door to the final by throwing 20, 20 and double ten. Barney had progressed in imperious fashion past Brendan Dolan 4-0, a match in which he hit a second nine darter in two world championship (in the 2nd leg of the 3rd set), Kevin Painter (4-1) and Ronnie Baxter (5-0) for the second time in two years, after his first-round victory over Parry. Some Anzac pride was restored with Whitlock’s win over Barney.  The man who had beaten him in the BDO World Championship final, Mark Webster, was also a semifinalist, facing Phil Taylor at that stage. Webster had defeated Mark Walsh and then two former finalists in a row in Peter Manley and Kirk Shepherd (who had gained some pay back in round by defeating his 2008 conqueror John Part 4-1) before overcoming the ever-reliable Co Stompe 5-3. Taylor had beaten Colin Monk and Steve Hine to nil (3 and 4 respectively) before defeating Rob Thornton 4-1. Adrian Lewis was back in the quarter finals, but Taylor defeated him 5-0, however his strong record in the tournament should have come as a warning to all. Taylor won the semi final 6-0 in stark contrast to how Whitlock had made the final. For many in the UK it was disappointing not to have another van Barneveld Taylor final whilst for Australian dart fans it would have been good to see Whitlock seek revenge on Webster, who had actually visited Australia in the interim. The final itself was a bridge too far for Whitlock on this occasion. He averaged over 100 (100.51) but Taylor had a 104.38 average and won 7 legs to 3. Taylor would lead 1 set to 0 before George Noble would get to announce a 170 finish from Whitlock to help him go back to 1-1. Whitlock would then go to a two set to one lead but even a 122 finish in the second leg of the third set was not enough to help him win the set as a whole. A 167 finish from Taylor in the opening leg of the fifth set gave him a fresh skip to his step and he was soon 3-2 up at the break, thanks also to a 161 finish to win that set 3 legs to 0. Whitlock was 2-1 legs up in the next set, but Taylor won two successive legs to move 4-2 up. A 122 finish by Taylor in the opening leg of the seventh set helped him on his way to a 5 set to 2 lead. With Whitlock requiring tops to go to a 2-leg lead in the opening of the next set Taylor threw a 170. It helped him move to within a set of the championship, but Whitlock won the ninth set, although blew a couple of chances on the way to winning the fourth leg of the set. Taylor could not get three on two visits and chasing the madhouse Whitlock got it with final dart in hand. With Whitlock needing 56 and 2-1 down in the tenth set Taylor hit a remarkable 131 finish (treble 20, treble 13 and double 16) to win the leg, the set, the match 7-3, and a 15th world championship.
The 2010 edition of the competition was also notable for the only separate PDC Women’s World Championship. It was played in the middle of the year with the early stages played in June at Barnsley and the final played at the World Matchplay at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. Australia was represented by Lavinia Hogg, and she won her opening match 4-2 over Linda Jones. She fell in the next round to another Englishwoman, Denise Cassidy. Of the more well-known names (some stayed loyal to the BDO) Deta Hedman made a run to the quarter finals whilst former world champion Anastasia Dobromyslova made it to the semi finals where she fell to American Stacey Bromberg 4-3. The top half of the draw was dominated by Tricia Wright and in the semi final she saw off the woman who had eliminated Hedman in the form of Fiona Charmichael (4-3). Bromberg then defeated Wright 6-5 in the final at Blackpool to be the first and only PDC Women’s World Champion.
2010/2011
The 2011 tournament came around and things were off to a bad start for the Aussie contingent as Rob Modra was unable to gain a visa to get to England in time and was replaced in the tournament by Kirk Shepherd, the player who had made quite the impact three years earlier and seemed to be on the way back the previous year until Mark Webster stopped his run. Kiwi Preston Ridd made his debut in the tournament, as did Aussie Shane Tichowitsch. Simon Whitlock was now 4th in the order of merit with Paul Nicholson 16th. It meant both were seeded in the 72-man tournament. Ridd won his debut match with a 4 legs to 0 whitewash of Northern Irish star Mickey Mansell and thus entered the first round with the three others. Gary Mawson, the Canadian born American representative, won his preliminary round match 4-1 over Filipino Janito Gionzon. He would lose to Phil Taylor in the first round 3-0, closing off a PDC world championship career that had started in the third edition of the tournament in 1996 at a time when American representation helped make up the field. Also in the preliminary rounds was Dutch legend Roland Scholten who progressed past Veijo Viinikka of Finland. In another European clash Dane Per Laursen made his sixth consecutive world championship appearance and defeated Boris Krcmar of Croatia 4-2. Swedish Magnus Caris completed the quartet from that region of the world and defeated Dietmer Burger of Austria 4-3. Devon Petersen of South Africa made his debut in this tournament, winning his preliminary round match 4-3 over the returning Norman Madhoo from Guyana. The final two preliminary matches saw Englishman lose 4-2 to Japan’s Morihiro Hadimoto and German Jyhan Artut defeated Brazilian born Hong Kong representative Scott MacKenzie. After defeating Mawson Taylor would go on and defeat Laursen (who had sensationally eliminated Part – The Canadian bundled out in the first round two of the three years after he won his last world championship) 4-0. Downunder results saw Ridd and Tichowitsch fail to progress into the second round as Ridd lost to Vincent Van Der Voort 3 sets to 0 and Andy Smith defeated Tichowitsch 3-1. Paul Nicholson defeated Steve Farmer 3-0 and Simon Whitlock Steve Evans by the same score line to see two Aussies or two Kiwis or a multiple combination of both make the second round for the very first time in the tournament’s history. The record would not happen in round 3 though as Nicholson fell 4-2 to Peter Wright. Wright would then fall victim to Phil Taylor 4-1. Simon Whitlock did progress by defeating Denis Ovens 4-0. His opponent in the round of 16 was Van der Voort. Already having eliminated a Kiwi in the tournament, and then followed that up with a 4-2 win over Wayne Jones (who had defeated Kirk Shepherd 3-1 in the opening round, the former finalists last match in the world championships), the Dutchman now took out the last remaining Australian, 4-2. Van der Voort would then fall in the quarter final stage 5-2 to Adrian Lewis. The two men who had beaten Whitlock in his world championship finals met in the other quarter final of that half of the draw and it was Welshman Mark Webster who upset Phil Taylor 5-2 to make the semifinal against Lewis. Two more wins that year and Webster and Whitlock could have stood on the oche against each other, but it was not to be. The Lewis Webster semifinal went the Englishman’s way with a 6-4 win. In the bottom half of the draw Gary Anderson eliminated Raymond van Barneveld in their quarter final 5-1. Anderson had conquered the man who took out Tichowitsch, Andy Smith 4-0 in the round of 16. Van Barneveld had defeated Colin Osbourne to set up the clash with Anderson. The Flying Scotsman’s semifinal opponent would be Terry Jenkins 6-2 who had come through a tough part of the draw where the opening round clashes read James Wade 3-0 Antonio Alcinas, Mensur Suljovic 3-1 Michael van Gerwen, Wes Newton 3-0 Darren Young, Brendan Dolan 3-0 Kevin Painter, Jenkins 3-2 Joe Cullen, Steve Brown 3-1 Jelle Klassen, Mark Walsh 3-1 Justin Pipe and Alan Tabern 3-2 Riche Burnett. Jenkins would defeat Wes Newton in a deciding leg (5-4) in their quarter final to set up his semifinal appearance with Anderson. The 2007 Premier League runner up was to make his single appearance in the world championship semifinals and lost the match, 6-2 to Anderson. There would be a new name crowned world champion, indeed despite their progress over the last few years neither player had made a world championship final before. Anderson won the first leg of the match but during that set Lewis secured the only nine darter in the Final’s history to go 2-1 legs up before Anderson won the next two legs straight. Adrian Lewis then rattled off six straight sets, including two final darts in the double 20 bed, to lead 2-0 in sets. A 136 check out from Anderson and he had won the next set 3 legs to 0. Lewis won the next set 3-1 before Anderson returned the favour by the same to leave the scoreboard reading Lewis’s 3 sets to Anderson’s 2. An 86 check out from Anderson with Lewis standing behind him requiring 47 moved the match back into parity after six sets. Lewis won the next leg to return to the lead 4-3. The next set went to a deciding leg where Lewis missed the double 18 for a 121 check out but was far enough ahead to complete the job on his next visit. Lewis would go three sets clear with an eleven dart fourth leg in the ninth set to lead 6-3. In the tenth leg Anderson would break the tournament record for most 180s but more importantly for him he won the set and would throw first in the next leg. Lewis missed his chance to break in the first and second leg and Anderson moved comfortably through the next leg until a 180 left Lewis on 80. The pressure worked as Anderson missed tops but Lewis again did not take his chances and Anderson eventually won the third 3-0 to clean house in an eleventh leg that Lewis could have won 3-0 had he taken his check outs. The match was now back to a one set difference at 6-5. Lewis had to win the next set on throw to avoid a deciding set where his opponent would have the first walk to the oche. Lewis went to a 2-0 lead in the next set and was on 22 when Anderson was on 118. Anderson missed the chance to throw a dart at a check out and instead left 40. With his second dart on his next visit Adrian Lewis threw double 11 to win the match. Lewis had defeated Anderson 7-5 in the final to win his first world championship and become the first player not to win a BDO World Championship before winning the PDC title, having never even competed in a BDO World Championship. It was also the last match Sid Waddell would commentate in the world championships although at the time this was not known by anyone, including the man himself.
2011/2012
2012 saw Simon Whitlock ranked fifth and Nicholson Ninth for the tournament. They would be joined by Aussies Geoff Kime and Sean Reed, A Kiwi made it through the preliminary round, with Warren French defeating Connie Finnan 4-3. Devon Peterson made it though the preliminary round for second successive year 4-3 over a debutant from Portugal, Jose de Sousa (who would not return to the tournament until 2019.) Kevin Munch of Germany would defeat Malaysian Lee Choon Peng 4-2 and from Serbia Oliver Ferenc would fall to Joe Cullen. In the main draw Warren French lost to Englishman Mark Walsh 3-1. Walsh would then go on to lose to former finalist Kevin Painter before he fell to 3-time world champion John Part 4-2 in the round of 16. James Wade had dropped only one set on his way to the quarter finals, to Fin Petri Korte in the opening round (3-1 the final result. He had defeated Jelle Klassen and Steve Farmer 4-0 but now faced his greatest challenge in former 3-time world champion Part. James Wade was firing on all fronts early in that match and clean swept the first set. The second went to a tie breaking leg which went to Part after checking out a 167 as Wade stood behind him needing 64. Wade was annoyed and went out and won 6 legs straight to lead 3-1 before Part checked out a 97 (Wade was needing 40) in the deciding leg of the next set. Part then clean swept the next set to tie things up at 6. Part then came from 2 legs to 1 down to move ahead in the match winning the seventh set 3 legs to 1 and leading the match 4 sets to 3. Wade won the next set 3 legs to 1 to push the match into a deciding set with James getting the first walk. That set went the whole way and for the 11th leg Wade won the bull for first throw. Part missed his shot at 128 and Wade threw treble 15 and tops for the match and a place in the semifinals.  Australian Sean Reed lost to Justin Pipe 3-1 in his opening round match in the same side of the draw. Pipe then got past Wes Newton 4-3 before losing 4-1 to Terry Jenkins who had already eliminated Joe Cullen (3-0) and Co Stompe (4-1). Wayne Jones had beaten another preliminary round winner in Hong Kong representative Scott MacKenzie before defeating Roland Scholten 4-0 in his last ever world championship match, the Dutchman’s 19 year run in world championships only missing the year 2000. The legendary Scholten would count his 3-1 win over Jamie Caven as his last ever world championship victory. Jones would face reigning world champion Adrian Lewis for a place in the semi finals as Lewis had already seen off Nigel Heydon (in 3 world championship appearances he would fail to get past round one although his 2019 BDO Lakeside appearance did see him win a preliminary fixture) 3-2 and Scotsman Rob Thornton 4-2. Lewis would wipe the floor with Jones 4-0 and then go on to make another semi final by defeating Jenkins 5-3. The Lewis v Wade match was set. The match was notable for a stoppage caused by a draft across stage as well as Lewis’s comeback as Wade missed a match dart before Lewis won ten straight legs and a 161 final check out to take the match 6 sets to 5. Aussie Geoff Kime lost his first-round match, 3-0 to Mervyn King 3-0. This match was in the same quarter of the draw as Simon Whitlock and the Wizard of Oz started a run that would get him to the semifinals once again, this time beginning with a 3-0 first round win over Dennis Smith. He then defeated former BDO World Champion Steve Beaton 4-1 in round two before taking on a future multiple world champion in Michael van Gerwen in round three. Van Gerwen had been one dart away from beating Phil Taylor in the tournament in 2008 and was a major threat but Whitlock handed him a 4-3 defeat. He would over time make quite a habit of beating MvG in the future, compared to most other players at least. Whitlock knocked out another future multiple world champion, and the previous year’s runner up in Gary Anderson with an emphatic 5-1 win in the quarter finals. He faced Andy Hamilton in the semi final but lost in the deciding set, losing 6-5 overall and thus missed the chance to return to the final once more. Still not bad for a bloke who had a broken ankle at the time! Paul Nicholson had also powered through the draw with wins over Mensur Suljovic in round 1 (3-1) before white washing Alan Tabern 4-0 in round 2. He fell to Belgian Kim Huybrechts in the next round (4-1). Had he won he would have met Hamilton in the next round and a positive result there could have seen an all-Australian semifinal between two Australian PDC World Cup teammates who were about to play in one of the most famous World Cup final of all time in 2012. Hamilton’s part of the draw had been cleared of the threat of Phil Taylor as his colleague from Stoke had been defeated by Dave Chisnall, 4-1, in the second round. Hamilton defeated Spaniard Antonio Acinas in the first round 3-2 and survived a second sound death set in beating Vincent van der Voort 4-3 in the second round. Hamilton would then defeat both Chisnall (4-0) and Huybrechts (5-2) in his next two matches. Thanks to his win over Whitlock, Hamilton had qualified for his first world championship final. The final was not as close as the semifinals as Lewis retained his world PDC champion title with a 7-3 victory over Andy Hamilton. Lewis won the first set with a 122 check out on the bull after it had gone to a deciding leg. Hamilton won the next set 3-1 before taking an early lead in the third. Lewis won the next three legs straight to retake the match lead at 2-1. Hamilton tied things up once more at 2-2 before the fifth leg went to a deciding leg. A 112 check out put him in front in the match once more. A double 15 at the end of the next set to Lewis put him two sets up for the first time in the match at 4-2. The Hammer won three legs straight to drag the match back into his grasp at 4-3 down. Hamilton failed to capitalise on this opportunity and Lewis won the next set with a double 11 capping off the set. The ninth set went to another deciding leg and yet again a triple figure check out gave Lewis the set, this time a 118 checkout completed with a double 19. Lewis had the darts in the tenth set but fell behind 2 legs to 0. He won three legs straight though, missing two match darts before Hamilton missed a dart at tops to take the set and move the score to 6=4 and so Lewis stepped up and through the required double 20 with his next dart in hand. Lewis had become the second person, behind Phil Taylor, to successfully defend his PDC crown at the first attempt. Later in the year he would break Australia’s hearts, with his mentor as his teammate, by throwing double 5 when the three other players in the final had missed check out darts, to win the World Cup for England over Australia.
2012/2013
The Aussie contingent in 2013 was Whitlock (ranked 5th), Nicholson (ranked 16th), Tichowitsch, and a young man named Kyle Anderson who was starting on his UK darting journey. They were joined by Kiwi Dave Harrington. Unfortunately for Kiwi darting fans Harrington was unable to replicate the success of his two New Zealand predecessors and lost in the preliminary round to Haruki Muramatsu of Japan 4-0. Other notable winners at this preliminary stage were Paul Lim and two youngsters, Max Hopp and Daryl Gurney. Nicholson won his opening round match against Dutchman Co Stompe and was joined in the second round by Simon Whitlock, who avenged Harrington’s loss by defeating Muramatsu 3-0. Tichowitsch lost his clash with Dave Chisnall by the same score line, as did Kyle Anderson, to Steve Beaton. In the second round Nicholson lost in a final set decider (4-3) to Rob Thornton. Whitlock had more success as he defeated Colin Osborne 4-0 before eliminating Chisnall 4-3. He faced Raymond van Barneveld in the quarter finals but lost 5-1. Barney had eliminated Michael Smith in the first round (3-0) and Brendan Nolan 4-1 in the second. He had then put former finalist Gary Anderson to the sword 4-0 to return to the final after another break of two world championships. Barney then faced a resurgent Phil Taylor in the semi finals and the man from Stoke won 6-4. Taylor had beaten Mickey Mansell and Jerry Henricks on his way to the third round (exactly replicating van Barneveld’s results.) He then eliminated Thornton 4-0 before also clean sweeping the previous year’s losing finalist Andy Hamilton (5-0.) Michael van Gerwen knocked out Adrian Lewis in his quarter final to stop the Lewis 14 match undefeated run at the worlds (5-4). Van Gerwen had seen off Paul Lim 3-0, Peter Wright 4-2 and Colin Lloyd 4-1 in previous rounds whilst Lewis had defeated another Dutch player in Gino Vos (3-0), and two veterans in Denis Ovens (4-1) and Kevin Painter, still causing pain for others in the tournament with his winning runs, 4-3. At the same time James Wade was dismissing the challenge of Wes Newton, also in a deciding set, in his quarter final. Both Wade and Newton had reasonable draws through the championship and were good enough to make the most of them up to the quarter final. The Wade van Gerwen semifinal saw more pain for the man from Aldershot as Wade lost 6-4 to the young Dutch star. Along the way van Gerwen secured the 3rd leg of the fifth set with a 9 darter - 179, 177, 144 (the only 9 darter in PDC world championship history that has this combination) before missing the double 12 on a second straight nine darter in the next leg. This was actually the second nine darter of the tournament as Dean Winstanley secured one in the third leg of the third set of his match against Vincent van der Voort earlier in the tournament. In the final Phil Taylor would therefore take on a third Dutchman in five rounds in the form of van Gerwen. The final demonstrated Taylor was not willing to hand over to the new guard yet as he won the match 7-4 to return to the top of the world for the 16th time. The first set went to a deciding leg and with the master on 80 MvG threw treble 20, treble 20, and double 10 to check out 140 and take the set. He then backed it up by winning the next set 3-1 with his opponent showing signs of frustration. That was eased a little when he took the deciding leg of the next set to get on the scoreboard. He then won his second deciding leg in two sets to bring the match back to 2-2 and with a little jig Taylor was back on level terms. Another set, another deciding leg and for the second time in the match van Gerwen moved in front. With a double 18 in the fourth leg of the next set van Gerwen had his two-set lead back at 4-2. Then he faced the real master as came from behind in the next set to win the deciding leg once more before a double 3 put Taylor on equal terms at 4 sets all. Van Gerwen was 2-1 legs up in the next set, but Taylor comfortably held throw before breaking MvG (who failed to convert 107) to the crowds delight and leading in sets for the first time in the match, 5-4. Taylor took his own two set lead in the match after winning the following set 3-1 and was only one set away from 16 World Championships. At 2-1 up in the next set, and with MvG behind him needing 170, Taylor lined up darts at a 91 check out. He threw 17, treble 14 and then won with a double 16. It was a fitting climax as only a month before the Sid Waddell trophy had been unveiled to be given to PDC world champions in the future after the legendary commentator had succumbed to cancer in 2012. Waddell had called many of Taylor’s greatest matches and it seemed right for the master to be the first name etched onto the trophy. Both players had gone to Bruce Spendley after the final and congratulated him on his career as he was retiring as a referee after an illustrious career, Taylor presenting him with the final board. Spendley would pass away in June 2021.
In 2013 the World Series of Darts started, and Sydney hosted it for the first time, raising the profile of the game and the PDC even further in the eyes of the general public. Therefore, more eyes were on Fox Sports in Australia and Sky Sports in New Zealand when the 2014 World Championships came along at the end of 2013 / very early 2014.
2013/2014
The 2014 PDC world championships saw Kyle Anderson’s brother, Beau, debut at the Ally Pally. Alongside him was his brother and Kiwi Rob Szabo. The Anderson brothers are one of three sets of brothers to play at the PDC World Championships, the others being Kim and Ronny Huybrechts and Wes and Dale Newton, Colin and Aaron Monk are the only father son combination to do so. Ranked in the top 32 were Paul Nicholson (20th) and Simon Whitlock (4th). Szabo returned to the Kiwi success of the preliminary round with a 4-3 tight win over Englishman Ian Moss. He then drew reigning world champion Phil Taylor who beat him 3 sets to 1. Taylor would be eliminated in the next round by youngster Michael Smith 4-3. Smith would then lose to Peter Wright who would go on to make the semifinals after overcoming Wes Newton 5-4 in the quarter finals (Newton’s third loss at this stage in four years and the furthest he would ever progress in the tournament.) Newton had beaten Hong Kong’s Royden Lam 3-1 in the first round and former champion John Part 4-0 in the second, Part’s victory over Mareno Michels of the Netherlands 3-2 would be his last on a world championship stage. Newton then defeated the man who had eliminated Beau Anderson in the second round, Rob Thornton. Beau Anderson had won his opening match, 3-2 against veteran Colin Lloyd, but lost 4-0 to Thornton, the man that had eliminated Paul Nicholson at the same stage the previous year. Nicholson had also made it into the second round in 2014, thanks to a 3-0 first round win over Stuart Kellett. It meant for the first time in the competition’s history there were three players from downunder in the second round. Nicholson lost 4-0 to Kevin Painter in that second round which was a shame as he once again failed to meet up with Whitlock in the world championships, Whitlock having seen off Ross Smith 3-0 and Jarkko Komula 4-0 in rounds one and two respectively. Whitlock also whitewashed Painter (4-0) before having a much tighter quarter final against Ian White, defeating him in a deciding, leg 5-4. White had defeated Kyle Anderson 3-1 in the opening round on what was a remarkable day in World Championship history as in leg one of the fourth set referee Paul Hinks called two 180s in succession for the Australian star and then Anderson converted the 141 to collect a nine darter. What was remarkable was this was not only the second one in the tournament, it was the second one on the same night with Russ Bray having called the same for Terry Jenkins in the second leg of his fifth set against Per Laursen with Jenkins also converting the 141 attempt about half an hour previously (both players would lose their matches though.) Whitlock faced Peter Wright in the semifinal but for the second time in three years he fell at this point (in between losing a quarter final), this time on the wrong side of a 6-2 score line.  The lower half of the draw saw some regular names make the quarter finals as Michael van Gerwen defeated Mark Webster 5-3 and Adrian Lewis dismissed old nemesis James Wade 5-1. Both van Gerwen and Webster had to overcome either previous or future world champions to make it that far with MvG defeating Gary Anderson 4-3 and Webster defeating Raymond van Barneveld by the same score in the third round. Lewis had defeated Mervyn King 4-1 to make his quarter final and James Wade stopped the first third round world championship run of Devon Petersen 4-0 (Peterson having got past Steve Beaton 3-1 and then Justin Pipe 4-1, two names often linked to downunder players in the PDC world championships.) The MvG v Lewis semifinal was a one-way affair, with van Gerwen winning 6-0. He took this confidence into the final against Peter Wright, with a guaranteed new name to be declared the winner. Wright had lost to van Gerwen in the 2010 and 2013 tournaments, the question was could he make amends. Van Gerwen had not taken the 2013 final loss well. Van Gerwen got off to a good start and quickly jumped to a two-leg lead. After some nervous moments he closed out the set 3-1. He then won three legs straight to jump to a two-set lead. He had been to this point last year, so it was all about what was to come next. He would double his leg run to six, completing the third leg with a 108 check out to lead 3-0 and then moved to four sets when he broke Wright in the fourth leg thanks to a 71 check out to lead 4-0. Wright finally secured a set when he checked out 130 in the fourth leg of the fifth set. In the first leg of the next set van Gerwen missed multiple shots at a check out to hand Wright an unlikely leg. He would take full advantage of that by winning the set 3-1 with a 100 check out in the final leg to move within two sets of his opponent at 4-2. Van Gerwen came from behind twice in the next set to win the decider and lead 4 sets to 2. Van Gerwen then secured the deciding leg of the next match with a double 16 after Wright had failed to collect double 20 with his last dart in hand when trying to check out 80. MvG then won the eighth set 3-1 to move four sets clear at 6-2 and it looked like it was all over. MvG was starting to miss the target as he got closer to his first world championship and Wright took advantage to win the ninth set 3 legs to 1. He then backed it up in the tenth with another 3-1 result, completing the set with a double 13! 6-4 and Wright had the throw in the next leg. Wright was unable to check out 108 and his opponent then failed to check out 7. Wright secured 48 to move a leg ahead. Van Gerwen then checked out 124 for 1 leg apiece. Wright then hit double 9 with MvG behind him at the oche requiring tops for the leg. 2-1 to Wright but MvG held his throw in the next leg (he started with 6 perfect darts) so the pressure would be on Wright’s next throw. Wright could only score 82 (save a little by a treble 19 with last dart). MvG secured 93 and then both players scored tons and Wright repeated that score again. MvG could only score 58 as Wright secured 81 on his next visit. A massive 140 left MvG needing 110. Wright needed the Deller finish (138) but only scored 80 to leave 58. Van Gerwen hit 20, 18 and then dropped his third dart. He quickly picked it up but missed the board completely to leave him needing 72. It would not prove that costly though as Wright missed two at tops for the leg, leaving 20 unscored and MvG stepped up and two 16 and double 20 for a famous victory, 7-4. Michael van Gerwen became the fourth Dutchman to be crowned a darts world champion, the previous world champions were Raymond van Barneveld, Jelle Klassen and Christian Kist.
2014/2015
2015 saw the highest representation from downunder in the history of the competition to that point. There were still only 72 competitors but with Whitlock (7th) and Nicholson (25th) ranked in the top 32 and Kyle Anderson qualifying through the pro tour order of merit (he was 13th in that order), others could join them through local qualification. Those players qualified downunder were Australians Laurence Ryder and John Weber as well as Kiwi Mark McGrath. McGrath lost his preliminary round match 4-0 to Scott Kirchner from the US. Boris Koltsov defeated Haruki Muramatsu 4-2 in the preliminary round to become the first Russian to play in the first-round proper (previously Anastasia Dobromyslova (2009) and Roman Konchikov (2010) had been in the preliminary round, but both had lost at that stage.) Also debuting was John Michael, in the first round, the first player to represent Greece in the PDC world championships (he would lose 3-1 to Ian White.) Had anyone said that we would have two Australian players in the second round before the tournament started most would have assumed they would be Whitlock and Nicholson but instead it was Ryder and Anderson who progressed. Simon Whitlock had fallen to Darren Webster in a 3-1 upset. It was the first time Whitlock had ever lost in the first round of the competition. Paul Nicholson fell to young Dutchman Benito van de Pas 3-2 at the same stage. Weber and Ryder were in the same section of the draw but failed to meet each other as Weber fell to Jenkins 3-1 in the opening round. Having seen off Justin Pipe 3-2 (his more infamous championship moment with a player from downunder was yet to come at this point) in round one, Ryder then fell to Terry Jenkins, this time 4-0. Kyle Anderson saw off Steve Beaton in the first round 3-0 (Beaton probably sick of playing downunder entries at this point.) Anderson then fell to Andy Hamilton 4-2. Hamilton would fail to beat Peter Wright, losing 4-0, at his next time at the oche before Wright fell to fellow Scott Gary Anderson 5-1. Gary Anderson then dismissed the defending champion’s challenge Michael van Gerwen with a 6-3 win in the semifinal. In two matches The Flying Scotsman had seen off both previous year’s finalists and it was a warning to all about what he could do. Van Gerwen had defeated Joe Cullen 3-1 in the first round (it was the fifth time out of five that Cullen had lost in the first round, and another Dutch man, Jelle Klassen, would extend that pain the following year. MvG had then gone on to defeat Sascha Stein 4-1 in Stein’s one and only championship tournament in the second round before getting past the man who already had two Aussie victims under his belt, Terry Jenkins 4-1. After defeating Nicholson van de Pas also upset Dave Chisnall 4-2 before being whitewashed 4-0 by Rob Thornton. Thornton could not stop van Gerwen in their quarter final clash with the Dutch star winning 5 sets to 2. Anderson stopped van Gerwen’s aim of getting to three PDC world championship finals in succession. The bottom half of the draw had been all Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld. Taylor had seen off a Dutchman in the quarter final in the form of Vincent van der Voort 5-3 whilst the English challenge of 2014 BDO World Champion Stephen Bunting had been ended by van Barneveld at the same stage (in a deciding set 5-4.) Taylor had made the quarters thanks to his 4-3 win over Kim Huybrechts whilst van der Voort had conquered Dean Winstanley 4-2, van Barneveld had beaten Adrian Lewis 4-3 (in another match that had needed a deciding set and a match where Lewis entered history alongside van Barneveld as he joined the Dutchman as the only players to have thrown two nine darters in PDC world championship history, this time in the deciding leg of the first set and the same way he had done it the first time – 180, 180, 141) and Bunting had eased past Michael Smith 4-2.  One notable result in the Barneveld Lewis quarter of the draw saw John Part lose his opening round match with Keegan Brown 3-2, it would be the former champion’s last match in a PDC World championship tournament. Other former finalists or world champions continued on though, with Mark Webster and Kevin Painter both making the second round and Andy Hamilton and Adrian Lewis making the third. The semifinal was not a classic as Taylor dismissed Barney 6-2. The final was a classic, though, and once again Taylor would lose the final to a deciding set. Gary Anderson became the first Scot to win the PDC world championship title with his 7-6 victory. He was only the third Scot overall, alongside Jocky Wilson and Les Wallace, to be crowned a darting world champion. A 121 checkout from Anderson had given him the first leg and then he missed a double ten to take a two-set lead. Taylor instead pounced but Anderson won two sets on the fly to lead 3-1. Taylor threw an 11 darter after the break and with both players missing doubles it was Taylor who held his nerve to tie the match up after six sets. Taylor missed multiple doubles in the next set but managed to gain the lead for the first time anyway. Anderson then made the most of his opponents missed dart to tie things back up at 4-4. The ninth set saw Anderson fall two legs behind before staging an awesome comeback to win three legs and the ninth set. Remarkably Anderson then watched as two darts laying in the treble 20 bed and a third dart he threw into the same bed all bounced out to leave him 180 less on the scoreboard! The dart board was changed, and Anderson managed to win the set anyway to lead 6-4. The opening leg of the next set saw Taylor almost collect a nine darter, just missing the double 12. He was soon back within one set and Taylor then held his nerve to move the match into a deciding set. With Taylor a leg behind the former world champion missed three darts to tie the set up before Anderson hit double 13. A double 12 in the next leg and Gary Anderson was crowned 2015 PDC Darts World Champion for the first time.
2015/2016
2016 and Gary Anderson was aiming to retain his title. He would be joined in the draw by five players from downunder with Simon Whitlock, Kyle Anderson, Rob Szabo and Laurence Ryder all returning and Kiwi Koha Kokiri joining them for the first time. John Part missed these championships for the first time since 1997 and Paul Nicholson was not part of the downunder contingent for the first time since 2008! Thailand did debut in the tournament, Thanawat Gaweenuntawong, but lost 2 sets to 0 to Rene Eidams from Germany in the preliminary round. This round had changed from best of 7 legs to best of 3 sets in 2016. New Zealander Rob Szabo won his preliminary match by 2 sets to 0 over Austrian Michael Rasztovits meaning that two Kiwis made the first-round proper of the competition for the first time in its history. It also meant, like the year before, there were five downunder players in the first-round proper. Kokiri was the only one of these five in the top half of the draw and he lost to Steve Beaton 3-0. In that top half of the draw the quarter finals saw Raymond van Barneveld defeat Michael Smith (the reigning World Champion Gary Anderson’s protégé) 5-4. Barney had seen off his fellow Dutch world champion Michael van Gerwen in the previous round 4-3 with both players averaging over 100 (Van Gerwen over 105.) Smith had finally made it to the quarters after two previous round 3 losses. Smith had beaten two Dutchmen already in Jeffrey de Zwaan (3-2) and Benito van de Pas (4-0) in rounds one and three respectively and had eliminated Kokiri’s conqueror Beaton 4-2 in between. A third Dutch victim was not to be though, and Barney was into another semifinal. Peter Wright had started the road to redemption with a victory over Keegan Brown 3-0. He then defeated Ronny Huybrechts 4-0 and avoided a clash with a former Dutch world champion when Christian Kist fell 4-1 to Dave Chisnall in the second round. Wright knew Chisnall would not be as clear as a result as the previous two matches and so it proved as Wright just got by in a deciding set (4-3.) He would face Adrian Lewis who had had even more success than Wright in the previous rounds, defeating all his opponents to zero sets (Dutchman Jan Dekker 3-0, fellow Englishman Andrew Gilding 4-0, and Austrian Mensur Suljovic 4-0) The quarter final saw Lewis continue his good form and eliminate Wright 5-2. Lewis won the semifinal over van Barneveld fairly comfortably 6-3 to return to his first final since 2012 but his third in six years. In the bottom half of the draw Vincent van der Voort eliminated two Australians. Laurence Ryder lost to him 3-0 in the first round and Kyle Anderson (who had beaten Northern Irishman Brendan Dolan 3-0 in the opening round) fell to him 4-2 in the second round. Rob Szabo lost to Jamie Caven 3-0 in the first round and Whitlock lost in the first round for the second successive year (3-2 to Ricky Evans.) Evans and Caven would meet up in the next round with Caven defeating rapid Ricky 4-0. Caven would fall 4-1 to James Wade in round 3 before the Gary Anderson knocked out Wade in the quarter finals 5-1, after the Flying Scotsman had ended the run of van der Voort in the previous round (4-0). Previous to that Anderson had defeated Northern Irishman Daryl Gurney 4-1 and Andy Boulton 3-0 in the first round. In the bottom quarter of the draw Jelle Klassen and Mark Webster started to roll back the years, but Webster fell in round three to Alan Norris 4-1. Klassen outlasted the Norris threat in the quarter finals, winning the final set to take the match 5-4 and set up a semifinal clash with Gary Anderson. Klassen’s semi final was less memorable than he would have hoped as Anderson whitewashed him 6-0, the Flying Scotsmen checking out 170 twice and throwing a nine darter for good measure (in the third leg of the first set.) An Adrian Lewis v Gary Anderson final was set for the second time in World Championship history. Could Anderson do what Lewis had done before him? Only the Englishman could prevent that, and Lewis started the match well, winning the opening set 3 legs to 1. Anderson then looked more comfortable as he clean swept the second leg and won the third set 3 legs to 1 to lead 2-1 in sets. In the deciding leg of the fourth set Lewis needed tops but was under some pressure thanks to a previous visit of 130 from Anderson. Lewis held his nerve to tie things back up at 2 sets all. The fifth set went to another deciding leg and Lewis moved well ahead but spurned a lot of darts towards the end of the leg. Anderson could not check out 167 and a double five from Lewis put him 3-2 up in legs and sets! Anderson then won the next two sets 3 legs to 1 to take the lead back at 4-3 and then clean swept the eighth set to move to 5-3. The ninth set was a clean sweep to Lewis, moving him back to within one set of Anderson.  The Flying Scotsman then clean swept Lewis in the next set to establish a 6-4 set lead and move within one leg of retaining his world champion title. Lewis looked super confident in wiping the floor with Anderson in the next set and thus the lead was cut to just one set. Anderson had the throw in the 12th set, however, forcing Lewis to have to break his opponent to move the match into a deciding set, a set he would have the first throw in. It was critical Anderson start well but an 11 darter from his opponent against the throw put the Scotsman behind. Anderson broke straight back before holding throw with a big fish (170) checkout in the next leg to move to within a leg of the championship. Despite a poor start in the fourth leg Anderson broke Lewis by throwing a double 12 check out dart to win the leg, the set, the match, and retain his world championship. Anderson, Lewis and Phil Taylor would now be the only three men to have successfully defended their PDC World Championship crown, and Anderson technically the first man in history to successfully defend the Sid Waddell trophy,
2016/2017
2017 saw downunder representation come down to four with Simon Whitlock joined by the returning Warren Parry from New Zealand and David Platt (now an Australian) as well as another debutant, the sensation that was Corey Cadby at the time. For the first time all three of the non-seeded downunder players had to win qualifiers and two of the three had success, Platt defeating John Bowles (England) 2-0, and Cadby seeing off Sun Qiang (China) by the same score line. Parry fell to Jerry Hendriks 2-0 to end Kiwi representation in the tournament. Tengku Shah had debuted as a representative from Malaysia, their third ever player on this stage, and upset Japanese player Masumi Chino 2 sets to 1 in the preliminary round. Simon Whitlock won his first-round match for the first time in three years, defeating Dragutin Horvat of Germany 3-0, but he then lost in the second round 4-0, to Darren Webster. Corey Cadby lost to Joe Cullen 3-1 in the first round. Phil Taylor and David Platt met once again, indeed had Platt won his qualifier on debut at the Circus Tavern all those years ago the two would have met each other on the three occasions Platt made the PDC World Championships. Taylor won this match 3-0 and progressed through to a quarter final against Raymond van Barneveld having also seen off great rival Kevin Painter 4-0 (Painter would have one more world championship match in him) in the second round and Kim Huybrechts 4-2 in the third. Barney had defeated three Englishmen along the way, Robbie Green 3-0, Alan Norris 4-0 and survived a sudden death set to defeat Adrian Lewis 4-3. Van Barneveld won his quarter final 5-3 over Taylor to set up yet another match against his World Cup teammate, but also great rival, Michael van Gerwen. MvG had defeated a world of players to make the quarter final, Finland’s Kim Viljanen, 3-0, Spain’s Cristo Reyes 4-2, Englishman Darren Webster (Whitlock’s conqueror) 4-1 and Northern Irishman Daryl Gurney (who had eliminated former world champion Mark Webster 4-3 in the previous round) 5-1. Van Gerwen defeated van Barneveld 6-2 to return to the final for the first time since he won the final in 2017. In the bottom half the quarters were English stars verse Scottish sensations. Gary Anderson started his defence campaign with three comfortable wins over Mark Frost (3-0), Andrew Gilding (4-0) and Benito van de Pas (4-2) to set up a quarter final clash with Dave Chisnall. Chizzy had defeated Austria’s Rowby-John Rodriguez 3-2, Chris Dobey 4-2 and former Dutch world champion Jelle Klassen 4-2.  Gary Anderson defeated Dave Chisnall 5-3 in their quarter final. The other one went to Peter Wright as he overcame James Wade by the same score, securing a 104.79 average in the process. Michael Smith had made his fourth successive third round clash but lost out to Wade in a deciding set 4-3. Wade would take on Peter Wright who had got through a section of the draw that had three Welshmen from eight players (future world champion Gerwyn Price, his future world cup winning teammate Johnny Clayton and Jamie Lewis) but Lewis was the only one he met, defeating him in the second round 4-0 before he defeated Ian White 4-1. His first-round match had been a comfortable one, defeating Dutchman Jerry Henricks 3-0. Therefore, two players who in the future would make up the first Scottish team to win the PDC World Cup (Anderson and Wright) would come face to face in the second semifinal and it would be Anderson who would make his third final in a row thanks to a 6-3 victory over Wright. Gary Anderson had not lost a PDC World Championship match since 2014, which was a run of 17 matches. Van Gerwen was not happy with being a single time world champion and it was the Dutchman who would triumph in the final. Van Gerwen won the first set only for Anderson to win the next two sets in deciding legs. MvG then won his own deciding leg, coming back from 2 legs to 1 down. He also won the next three legs to lead 3-2. Within a flash the Dutchman was 6-2 up, having won 9 of the next 11 legs. In the ninth set’s deciding leg Anderson hit two 180s and checked out 81 to stay in the match at 6-3. Anderson took a 2-1 leg lead in the tenth set but then conceded the next leg as van Gerwen secured his fifth triple figure finish in the match, a 100. Maximums from both players and Anderson soon needed to check out 134 to stay in the match. He failed to do so, and the bull was the final target of the match for van Gerwen (who checked out 85 with it.) Michael van Gerwen joined all the previous PDC world champions as multiple time winners (Priestley winning one in the WDC and one in the BDO.) For him it was now about trying to retain his title on the first attempt, something he had yet to do in his world championship career.
2017/2018
2018 saw Phil Taylor break the record for consecutive appearances in World Championship finals at 29, beating the 28-match record of John Lowe. He had already announced it would be his last so the 25th PDC / WDC world championship could have a mighty new story to tell. At the end it would have multiple stories to regale, but the true fairy tale story turned out to be only just out of grasp. From downunder Kyle Anderson (24th) had joined Simon Whitlock (10th) in the top 32 order of merit. They were joined by Gordon Mathers and two Kiwis, veteran Bernie Smith (the Oceanic Masters winner) and young superstar Cody Harris. The three had to play in the preliminary round, a preliminary round that would go down in history. Aussie Mathers lost to Japanese sensation Seigo Asada 2 sets to 1, Asada’s debut at this tournament although he had played in the three previous BDO world championships and would go on to lose the story of the 2018 event, Rob Cross (3-0 in the first round), whilst Cody Harris eliminated American Willard Bruguier 2-1 with Smith enjoying more Kiwi success by defeating Chinese player Zong Xiao Chen 2-0. Other preliminary winners included Welshman Jamie Lewis (2-1 over Belgian Kenny Neyens) and former BDO finalist Canadian Jeff Smith (2-0 over Luke Humphries of England.) Cody Harris lost to Ian White 3-1 in the first round, and his Kiwi colleague lost to Justin Pipe 3-2 in the same round in a match dubbed by some as cough gate as some fans accused Pipe of coughing at critical points on the Smith throw. Smith, being the consummate professional, made nothing of it and said Pipe won because he took his chances, not for any other reason, but for some Kiwi fans it left a bad taste in the mouth for a while. The two Australian seeded players made round two with Whitlock defeating Martin Schindler 3-1, and Kyle Anderson putting Peter Jacques to the sword 3-1 by the same score in their opening round clashes. The next round saw both Aussies complete the same score line as each other once again, but in this case they were two losses, as Raymond van Barneveld (who had beaten Richard North 3-0 previously) defeated Anderson and Darren Webster (who had moved past South African Devon Petersen 3-2) eliminated Whitlock both scoreboards reading 4-1 (the second time in three championships Webster had defeated Whitlock.) Was it another case of the former Aussie BDO World Championship second round curse? In the Whitlock part of the draw his conqueror Webster in the third round went on to make the quarter final by defeating Spaniard Tony Alcinas in the third round against a player who had come through from the qualifiers, Welshman Jamie Lewis. Lewis had been making a name for himself by defeating countryman Johnny Clayton 3-0 in the first round and then eliminating former world championship finalist and second seed Peter Wright 4-1 in the next round. Lewis then defeated Englishman James Richardson (4-1) before progressing past Webster with a 5-0 victory in their quarter final. He then faced a resurgent Phil Taylor who had seen off Chris Dobey (3-1), Pipe (4-0) and Keegan Brown (4-0) to this point, or three-time previous finalist Gary Anderson in the semifinals. The three-time finalist had won his three matches to that point fairly comfortably against preliminary round winner Jeff Smith (3-0), the remarkable 53-year-old Paul Lim (4-1) playing in his 22nd world championship, who had eliminated Mark Webster in the Welshman’s 12th and final world championships 3-2, and Steve West (4-2) who had finally made it past the first round on the 7th time of asking. It would be Taylor who would see off his old foe Anderson 5-3 in their quarter final to move to within one match of the final. Lewis v Taylor would see a fairytale possible story in the final either way as Lewis was the first player to make a semi final from the preliminary round in the history of the tournament and Taylor was looking to extend his World Championship record. In the semi final Taylor’s experience shone through as he won 6 sets to 1 over Lewis. The other quarter finals saw a rematch from the previous year and two new names combat against each other. For the second year in a row van Gerwen defeated van Barneveld at the quarter final stage (in a tight match – 5-4.) Barney had gone on from defeating Kyle Anderson to eliminating compatriot and good mate of MvG, Vincent van der Voort 4-1 in round 3 to set up the meeting with MvG. MvG had already taken on a Dutch world champion in Christian Kist in the first round (winning 3-1) before winning against James Wilson 3-1 and a future world champion in 16th ranked Gerwyn Price 4-2 in round three. Reigning world youth champion (and 2017 semi finalist in that tournament where he lost to Corey Cadby) Dmitri van den Bergh was playing in his third world championship and had defeated former two-time world champion Stephen Bunting, 3-1 in the first round, Dutchman Jan Dekker 4-2 in round 2 and Austrian Mensur Suljovic in the following round 4-0. The other surprise semi finalist was debutant Rob Cross who had defeated Seigo Asada and then survived two match darts against Michael Smith 4-3 before putting fan and peer firm favourite Highlander John Henderson to the sword 4-1. The quarter final would go to a deciding set and Cross would come away victorious 5-4. The pressure of the last set decider would be good preparation for his next match, against reigning world champion Michael van Gerwen. MvG was favourite to extend his winning run and try and retain his world championship for the first time in his career against the debutant Cross. Some would dub this match even better than the Barney v Taylor final in 2007. Cross led the first set 2-1 only for MvG to come back to 2 legs all. In the deciding leg Cross threw a 180 to put pressure on his opponent, who then failed to check out 77 and a double 12 gave Cross the first set. The following set went to another deciding leg but this time the reigning champion threw six perfect darts and eventually took out the leg and the second set with last dart in hand and Cross still requiring 105. A 161 check out gave Cross a one set lead before both players held for Cross to be 3-2 up. A 12-darter leg put the game back to all square once again. At the break Cross would be 4-3 up before van Gerwen won the set straight after. The Dutchman went one leg up early in the deciding set before Cross moved 2-1 ahead. A 133 visit left van Gerwen needing 132 and in 5 darts he levelled at 2-2. Cross then led 3-2 and 4-3 but on both occasions van Gerwen pinned him back, being the deciding leg and past 2-2 the winner had to be 2 legs clear or win an eliminator 11th leg. Van Gerwen went 5-4 up and then moved to 165 with Cross on 341 in the following leg. 95 from the Dutchman moved him to needing 70 as Cross moved from 284 to 144 with a 140 visit. Van Gerwen hit treble 18 with his first dart but missed two at double 8 for the match and a place in the final. 92 left Cross on 52 and he must have thought they were his last darts of the tournament, but van Gerwen hit 8 and then missed two at double 4 to give Cross a chance that he would take with a favourite in double 18 to tie things up. Van Gerwen then missed the 25 and 50 to hand Cross first visit to the oche in the eliminating leg. Cross, who had earlier in the match missed the bull to win the match, fell slightly behind van Gerwen in the leg but Cross had first shot at a check out, 140, with MvG standing behind him needing 108. Cross hit treble 20 and then treble 16 before missing the double 16 for the match. Van Gerwen then threw treble 20 and 16 but also missed the double 16 for the match (his sixth match dart.) Cross won the match with his next dart after a classic encounter that saw his opponent miss six match darts, unheard of by van Gerwen at the time. The final would therefore be a debutant against a retiring master. Cross was 2-1 ahead in the first set and threw a 177 to leave 47 in a fourth leg he had been a mile behind him. Taylor failed to check out 36 and Cross stepped up to win the first set. Cross then checked out 167 to secure the second set in a row 3-1. Cross threw 5 perfect darts in a row in the second leg of the next set and went to a 2-0 leg lead with an 11 darter. A 153 check out in the next leg and he was 3 sets to 0 up. Taylor clean swept the next set to move back to 3-1 and then threw 8 perfect darts in the next leg.  Taylor had never hit a nine darter at the world championships and this would remain the case as he missed the double 12 by a millimetre. Remarkably he also dropped the leg to Cross and then lost the set 3 legs to 0. Cross then went 2 legs to 0 up in the fifth set before Taylor hit 5 perfect darts once more and checked out 123 to hold his throw in the third leg. Cross won the next leg 3-1 anyway and thus led the match 5-1. At 2-1 up in the next leg Cross checked out 93, after Taylor hit 25 instead of the bull on a 161 check out, to lead 6 sets to 1 and move within one of the world championship. Taylor wanted to not finish his last match on the professional stage yet and won the eighth set 3-0 but Cross quickly moved two legs clear in the ninth set. He scored 162 to leave 90 before Taylor threw 140 to move from 190 to 50. Would Taylor try to hit the dart straight up as he had to Kevin Painter all those years ago? We would never know as his opponent threw treble 18 twice before landing his dart in the double 16 section to give him the 140 check out he required for the championship. Rob Cross was crowned champion on his debut in the world championships and Taylor would end his final competitive match in darts on the wrong side of the scoreboard.
2018/2019
2019 saw Paul Nicholson return to the Ally Pally stage, joined by Kyle Anderson, Simon Whitlock, James Bailey, Raymond Smith and Kiwi’s Craig Ross and Cody Harris from Australia and New Zealand. This was the high point for downunder representation in the newly expanded field (96 players.) Cody Harris played third up on the first day of the event and won his opening round match 3-2 over Martin Schindler. He lost in the second round to Jamie Lewis by 3 sets to 2. Lewis seemed to be repeating his efforts of the year before but fell in the fourth round, 4-0 to Dave Chisnall. Chizzy had defeated Josh Payne 3-2 in his opening match in the second round and then beat Kim Huybrechts much more comfortably, 4-0. In this bracket Paul Nicholson also lost his opening round match 4-0 to Kevin Burness. Burness would lose 3-1 to Gary Anderson in the second round as the Flying Scotsman survived two matches 4-3, against Jermaine Wattimena and Chris Dobey, to set up a quarter final clash with Chisnall. In his section of the draw Raymond Smith lost to Alan Tabern in the first round, 3-1. Tabern lost in the second round to Michael van Gerwen, 3-1, with MvG eliminating Max Hopp 4-1 in the third round. Adrian Lewis was in his way in the fourth round as the two dual world champions went head-to-head. The Dutchman progressed past his English opponent in relative ease at 4 sets to 1. In the same section Ryan Joyce had defeated Anastasia Dobromyslova 3-0 in the opening round. This was a historic return to women actually entering the competition alongside the men but neither Dobromyslova (who had played in this competition in 2009 and again in the PDC women’s world championship in 2010 before returning to the BDO) or Lisa Ashton won their matches (Ashton losing 3-1 to Jan Dekker.) Joyce defeated Simon Whitlock 3-0 in the second round (Whitlock having had the bye in the first round) and went on to beat Alan Norris and James Wade in two deciding sets (both 4-3.) Norris had eliminated the man who had defeated Aussie debutant James Bailey three nil in the first round, Steve Lennon, the match finishing 3-2. Joyce and MvG would face off against each other in a quarter final. Kiwi Craig Ross lost his opening match 3-0 to Spaniard Tony Alcinas. Alcinas then upset Peter Wright 3-1 in the second round, the first time Wright had lost his opening match in the competition since 2012. Alcinas fell to another surprise packet in Benito van de Pas in the next round 4-2 before the Dutch youngster fell to Brendan Nolan 4-1 in the round of 16. The Northern Irishman had not got past the second round in his ten previous attempts at the worlds and now he was in the quarter finals having counted Yuanjun Liu (3-0), Joe Cullen (3-0), and Mervyn King (4-2) as his victims in previous rounds. In the same part of the draw Kyle Anderson won his second-round clash (having also had the bye in the first round) over Filipino Noel Malicdem 3-1. In the next round he would face the new sensation of the World Championships, Nathan Aspinall, with the Englishman taking the match 4-1. Aspinall had already eliminated Dutchman Geert Nentjes 3-0 and number six seed Gerwyn Price 3-2. (Would Price ever have a really long run in the world championships? Maybe over the next two years) In round 4 Aspinall would take on inspirational South African Devon Petersen who was back after a couple of lean years. It was a fantastic round 4 clash as Aspinall and Peterson went to a final set decider and then that set went past two legs all. At 3-2 up and Petersen needing the big fish to check out standing behind him Aspinall hit the double 16 required with his first dart to make his first quarter final. Could a debutant win the competition for the second year running? The final quarter final was made up of Michael Smith (who defeated Ryan Searle 4-1 in round 4 having already eliminated John Henderson 4-2 in round 3 and Ron Meulencamp from The Netherlands 3-1 in round 2) and Luke Humphries (who ended reigning champion Rob Cross’s run in round 4 with a 4-2 upset victory having already dismissed Dimitri van den Bergh in the previous round 4-1 and unlike Smith having to gone through two matches prior, Adam Hunt 3-0 in round one and Stephen Bunting 3-1 in the second.) Anderson (5-2), MvG, Aspinall and Smith (all 5-1) all won their quarter final matches and thus the semifinals would see one match between two multiple world champions meet and the other the new age of darting player. MvG, in his second battle of dual world champions in this tournament, comprehensively dismissed Anderson 6-1, whilst Smith progressed past Aspinall 6-3 in those semifinals. Aspinall, in his debut year in the tournament, had been at odds of 500 to 1 to win the tournament and that year would go on to win the UK Open, beating Rob Cross in the final that culminated in a 170 check out to win the whole thing. New Year’s Day 2019 came before that though and saw the final played out between van Gerwen and Smith. It was clear from the start the direction the match was going with Van Gerwen winning the first three sets, the second two 3 legs to 1. This was the second final in a row that a player had gone three sets clear. Van Gerwen had one the first set in a deciding leg before winning the next two 3-1. Smith missed four darts at a double in the deciding leg of the fourth set and MvG pounced to lead 4 sets to 0. Smith finally won a set in the fifth as he came from 2-1 down in legs to win, having checked out a 124 with MvG needing 20 behind him in the deciding leg. In the fifth Smith clean swept the legs 3-0 to move the match score to 4 sets to 2. MvG won the seventh set 3-1 and then came from behind twice in the eighth to win the deciding leg. It was tight, though, as when needing 112 he watched Smith hit two treble 20s and then 25 trying to hit the big fish for the set, and then after missing the double 16 for his own check out MvG had to watch his opponent miss two more check out darts. A double 8 with his second dart had provided the 6-2 lead to the Dutchman. Smith was well in the match still and in the next set he came from 1-0 and 2-1 down to take the set 3-2. Van Gerwen went 2-0 up in legs in the tenth set and in the third leg missed a double 16 for a 109 check out for the championship. Smith converted 58 to stay in the match but it only delayed the inevitable with van Gerwen converting 32 with the required double 16 in the next leg to secure the 7-3 victory. MvG was a three-time champion but would have immediately set himself the task of going back-to-back to reinforce his well-known dominance of the sport.
2019/2020
2020 would see downunder entrants paired back to five, with Simon Whitlock and Kyle Anderson joined by the new swathe of names for global darting fans to learn, although fans downunder already knew these talented Aussie and Kiwi players in Damon Heta, Robbie King and Ben Robb. (All three of these players had family ties to Australia and New Zealand, true downunder representation.) The three were part of a contingent of 15 international debutants in this championship, with Latvia represented for the first time by Madars Razma who lost to Harry Ward 302 in the opening round, Ward then facing Simon Whitlock in the next round. Kyle Anderson won the opening match of these quintet of players, defeating Chinese Xiachen Zong 3-2 in the opening round. In the 25th game of the tournament Ryan Searle defeated Robbie King 3-2, King unable to take the deciding leg of the deciding set, missing a shot at tops for a 108 check out for the match but his opponent taking his fist shot at tops that leg to take the match. Damon Heta won his match five games later, 3-0 against Jose de Sousa, a player who within 18 months was playing in the Premier League. This match would soon be forgotten by many though thanks to the next game on the Ally Pally stage. Fallon Sherrock became the first woman to win in the previous men’s competition. Sherrock defeated Ted Evetts, despite being back 1-0 and 2-1 in terms of sets by 3 sets to 2. Sherrock would prove it no fluke win when she eliminated Mensur Suljovic 3-1 in the next round. In the third round she was tied 2-2 with Chris Dobey before he secured the last two sets 3-1 and 3-0 for the match. Dobey had seen off Ron Meulencamp in his opening match of the tournament (round 2 as Dobey was the 22nd seed), the Dutchman having defeated Kiwi Ben Robb 3-0 in round one. After the victory over Sherrock Dobey moved forward to play Glen Durrant who had defeated Heta in their second-round match 3-0 and then Daryl Gurney 4-2 in the third round. Durrant’s 4-3 win over Dobey would set him up to play a man who had taken another Australian out in the quarter finals, Gerwyn Price. Simon Whitlock had received a bye to round two and won his opening clash 3-0 over Harry Ward. When he played his next match, Whitlock was the only downunder player left in the tournament and he defeated Mervyn King in their third-round clash 4-1. In the fourth round Whitlock lost to future world champion Price, 4-2, thus the Welshman setting up a previous v future world champion battle against Durrant. In his section of the draw Kyle Anderson had fallen to Steve Beaton 3-1 in the second round, pay back for 2015 perhaps? It would turn out to be the Australian’s final match in any world championships as he returned to Australia in 2020. Having upset James Wade in the third round 4-2 the former world champion Beaton would go on to play Darius Labanauskus in the fourth round but lost 4-2, thus the Lithuanian set up a clash with van Gerwen in the quarter finals. It matched the best run of the Lithuanian, in the 2017 BDO world champions. MvG had seen off fierce Dutch rival and another former world champion, Jelle Klassen, in the second round, 3-1, before dispensing of both Ricky Evans and Stephen Bunting 4-0 to gain another place in the quarter finals. Bunting had looked dangerous after his 4-0 win against Johnny Clayton in the previous round (albeit it had been nervous times for Bunting in his opening match in the second round, surviving a scare from Spanish Jose Justicia 3-2) but was no match for the reigning, defending champion in van Gerwen. Robbie King’s conqueror Searle would once again go deeper into the tournament by defeating Steve West 3-0 in his next match but lost in a deciding set, 4-3 to Gary Anderson, in the third round. Anderson’s progress was then halted by Nathan Aspinall who won 4-2 (the previous year’s feel-good story having already beaten US star (Danny Baggish – 12 months later Australians would learn more about him, 3-1 and Krzysztof Ratajski (another name Aussie fans would not want to hear about in the 2021 edition of these championships) in a close match, 4-3, the Englishman winning the last set 3-0 and completing the match with a 116 check out. Aspinall’s quarter final would be against Dimitri van den Bergh, who had eliminated Adrian Lewis in a deciding set (4-3) the previous round. Van den Bergh had only faced Englishmen in the tournament, having defeated Josh Payne 3-0 and Luke Woodhouse 4-2 in the previous rounds (Woodhouse making the third round at the first attempt and some wondering whether his was the Cross or Aspinall run of debutants from the previous two PDC world championships.) Peter Wright’s poor run at the world championships of recent times looked like continuing when Filipino star Noel Malicdem stepped up with a dart at eliminating Wright in the Scotsman’s first match (Malicdem having beaten Austrian Rowby-John Rodriguez in the first round to record two wins in two world championships to that point.) Malicdem missed and Wright moved on with a 3-2 win but not before winning a nervous final leg decider (this way of deciding a match would be gone the next year.) Seigo Asada’s appearance in the third round marked the furthest any Japanese player had gone before (Mickey Mansell 3-0 and Keegan Brown 3-2 being his previous match wins) Wright was able to beat him 4-2. Many thought he would play a Dutchman in the round of 16 but perhaps not the one he faced. Raymond van Barneveld had fallen to US player Darin Young (the Americans looking more like the players that came through in the 90s at the PDC world championships) 3-1 in the first round before De Zwaan beat the American in round two. Straight after the match van Barneveld announced his retirement, seemingly out of frustration at what had just happened at the oche, but in the light of day chose to continue his darts playing career. It would not be the only time om his career Barney would change his retirement ideas. Vincent van der Voort defeated young Irish sensation Keane Barry in the opening round 3-0 but fell to Dave Chisnall 3-1 in the second. De Zwaan restored Dutch pride by defeating Chisnall in a deciding leg (4-3) to face Wright in the fourth round, and for many pundits he was a slight favourite in the match. The match was indeed close and with both men having survived tight matches previously in the tournament the deciding leg was something they were both prepared for. It went Wright’s way 5-3 in that last leg, both having missed the bull in the previous visits before Wright checked out for the win. His quarter final opponent would be Luke Humphries who backed up his quarter final appearance in the 2019 tournament with another one here, having seen off Devon Petersen 3-1 Jermaine Wattimena 3-2 and young German Nico Kurz 4-2. He would face Kim Huybrechts who had made another world championship run (having now made it to at least the third round three of the past four years and the quarter finals in 2012.) As well as Dutchmen Geert Njentes (3-2 round one) and 2017 BDO world championship finalist Danny Noppert (4-2 round three) Belgian Heybrechts had eliminated former world champion Rob Cross 3-0 in the second round. Humphries triumphed 4-1 over Huybrechts in their round of 16 match to move onto Wright in the quarter finals. None of the quarter finals went to deciding legs with van Gerwen, Aspinall, Wright and Price making the semifinals. Van Gerwen lost the first set to Labanaauskas but was not really threatened after that and won his match 5-2. Aspinall went 4-1 up against van den Bergh only to lose two sets straight but took the eighth game to progress to his second successive world championship semi final 5-3.  Price went 2-0 up before Durrant won his one and only set, thus Price winning 5-1 whilst Wright went 2-1 up and then 4-2 up before losing the next set 3 legs to 0. At 4-3 Wright wrestled control of the match back, winning the last set 3 legs to 1 to give him his 5-3 victory and set up a semi final line up of Wright v Price and van Gerwen v Aspinall. Wright’s semifinal win over Gerwyn Price was tempestuous at times and the two did not exchange handshakes after Wright hit the madhouse to win the semifinal 6-3 (3-2 in the ninth leg.) There were some comments by both afterwards in interviews and on social media before Price would apologise to Wright later and on social media to the world. Perhaps he learnt from it, or used it as motivation, for the next time he would be at oche in the Ally Pally at the PDC world championships. Wright had been behind 2 sets to 1 in the match and it had been 3 sets all before Wright won two of the next 3 sets in tiebreaking legs and the one in between by 3 legs to 1 to return to the Final stage for the first time since his loss at that point four years previous. Van Gerwen and Aspinall’s semifinal saw the Dutchman lead Aspinall 4-3 after seven sets, Aspinall having won the seventh set 3-0, but 3-2 and 3-1 sets eight and nine gave van Gerwen (who had never been sets behind in the match) a chance to finally go back-to-back as PDC world champion, thanks to the 6-3 victory giving him a place in the final. This tournament marked Wright’s 25th year from when he first played in a World Championship (the BDO 1995 version), so both players had special motivational points to help them through the final. In the first set a deciding leg was needed and van Gerwen actually hit the wire outside of the bull when chasing a 170 finish. Wright stepped up to the oche and threw tops to secure that first set. 12 and 13 dart legs in the final two legs of set two then gave Wright a two-set lead, 2-0. With an average over 120 van Gerwen then whitewashed Wright in the third set and won the deciding leg in the fourth to tie things back up at 2 sets all. Wright then broke the van Gerwen throw twice in the fifth set to retake the lead and whitewashed MvG in the sixth to lead 4-2. Van Gerwen broke the throw of Wright to get a set back against the throw in set seven, the scoreboard reading 4-3. Both players held their throw for two legs in the next set. In the fifth and deciding leg MvG missed tops for the checkout and Wright took it instead, with a double 16. 5-2 looked good, but this was MvG behind, and this was Wright in front, history showing that the score board at that point did not mean all that much in terms of who would end up taking the match. Wright held throw for three legs to take a 6-3 set lead. Van Gerwen then actually started walking off stage for what he thought was a break after that set and had to be called back to the oche. Wright took a 1-0 lead in that next set before van Gerwen just missed a double 12 for a nine darter. Wright missed the bull for the leg with his 12th dart and his opponent hit double 6 with his tenth dart to tie the set up at 1-1. Wright then broke van Gerwen straight back and in the next leg double 10 stood between him and the championship. He missed two at the target and old doubts could have unsettled him, but he controlled himself and hit the double ten with last dart in hand. Peter Wright thus became the second Scotsman to be a PDC World Champion and joined Gary Anderson, Les Wallace, and Jocky Wilson as darts World Champions overall.
2020/2021
2021’s event was held in front of no crowds due to the pandemic at the time but still at the Alexandra Palace. Aussies Gordon Mathers and James Bailey and Kiwi Haupai Puha got to London still and would be joined in the draw by Simon Whitlock (playing in his 12th consecutive PDC World Championship tournament and 13th in total) and Damon Heta (now a PDC tour card holder and the talk of the darting world.)  One player dropped out, Martijn Kleermaker, and would have been replaced by Josh Payne but Payne could not make quarantine due to contacts he had with community members impacted by the pandemic and thus South African Cameron Carolissen had a bye into the second round. Thirteen players, including Carolissen, made their competition debuts and entries were confused due to the cancellation of qualification tournaments throughout the world, including the Oceanic Masters not being held for the first time in its history, with DPA runners up James Bailey taking the spot instead and Haupai Puha getting the Kiwi position due to him being the top ranked player after the normal DPNZ season (the normal 16 person play off not being held.) On the second day of the tournament both Mathers and Bailey were eliminated in the space of two matches, Max Hopp defeating Mathers 3-0 and Callan Rydz eliminating Bailey 3-1. Two days on and Haupai Puha lost to Mickey Mansell 3-0. The biggest shock from a downunder perspective came the following day when Heta was defeated 3-2 by American Danny Baggish, although his progress through the tournament (and a month later securing a PDC tour card) showed it was not one-off form from the US star. So yet again it was down to Simon Whitlock. He had a tough second round draw against the previous year’s surprise quarter finalist in Darius Labanauskus of Lithuania but was able to see him off 3-2 thanks to a 3-0 leg result in the deciding set. That win prevented a championship where neither a Kiwi nor Aussie had won, the last time that had occurred was 2008, in the first edition of the tournament at the Ally Pally. Whitlock lost in the third round to the Pole Krysztof Ratajski, 4-0, and the Pole went on to make the quarter finals after defeating Gabriel Clemens in the fourth round, surviving a deciding set to win 4-3. German Clemens had knocked reigning world champion Peter Wright in the previous round, 4-3, having eliminated compatriot Nico Kurz 3-1 in his opening match (Clemens was the 31 seed for the tournament.) Stephen Bunting would be Ratajski’s opponent in the quarter finals after The Bullet won all three of his previous all English clashes, 3-2 over Andy Boulton, 4-2 over James Wade (who had slain James Baileys conqueror 3-0 in the second round to be looking in good form, demonstrated by his 9 darter in the second leg of the fifth set with the match tied at 2-2, the first at the Ally Pally in five years, although he did go on to lose that set and the match) and 4-3 over Ryan Searle, winning the final set 3-2 now that the winning by two legs in a deciding leg once the match got to 2-2 had been abolished. Searle had made the fourth round twice out of his 3 championship runs and in between made the third round. His road to the fourth-round loss at Bunting’s hand was Danny Lauby Jr from the US 3-2 in the first round, Dutchman Jeffrey De Zwaan 3-0 in the second and the ever-reliable Belgian Kim Huybrechts 4-2 (the last five years three round 3s and one round 4.) After seeing off Scotland’s Ryan Murray, 3-1, and England’s Ricky Evans, 4-0, in the earlier rounds Michael van Gerwen survived his match against Joe Cullen in a classic fourth round tie, Cullen missing match darts at the bull, and MvG coming from 3-1 sets down and winning the seventh set after being 2-1 legs down in that as well, watching Cullen miss the bull for a 164 check out in the second last leg. Cullen had hit a remarkable 19 180s throughout the match, was this a sign the Dutch master was on the road to another championship? Some thought so, after all Peter Wright had won the year before having survived a match dart earlier in the tournament.  Van Gerwen’s reward was a quarter final clash with Dave Chisnall, who had seen off Belgian Dimitri van den Bergh 4-2 in the previous round. Chisnall had been in superlative form having seen off Dutchman Danny Noppert 4-2 in the third round and Keegan Brown 3-1 prior to that. The MvG Chisnall clash was thought to be a classic in the making, but again what was thought and what was reality when it comes to the PDC World Championships were very different things. Danny Baggish, after getting past Damon Heta, had gone on to oust Adrian Lewis 3-1 in the second round, only the second time in the 17 straight PDC World Championships Jackpot had been in that he lost in his first match of the tournament.  Baggish fell 4-2 to another former world champion in Glen Durrant in the third. The three-time world champion then lost to Dirk van Duijvenbode 4-3 in the fourth round. Van Duijvenbode would meet Gary Anderson in the quarter finals. The Dutchman had seen off former world champion Rob Cross of England 3-2 in the second round and then in the third defeated fellow Englishman Adam Hunt 4-0 (Hunt’s victory over Lisa Ashton 3-2 in the first round and dismissal of Jamie Hughes 3-0 in the second quickly soon a long-distance memory as the Dutchman hit a 104.09 average to whitewash Hunt.) Could van Duijvenbode dismiss three world champions in the space of four rounds (His first-round victim Bradley Brooks (3-2) was also the 2020 World Youth Champion.) To get to their quarter final match Gary Anderson had seen off the returning Latvian Madars Razma 3-1 in the second round (the five-time Latvian champion securing his first win in the PDC world championships, he had two in the main rounds of previous BDO world championships, when he won his first-round match 3-0 against Japanese opponent Toru Suzuki.) Anderson also survived a match with Mensur Suljovic that went to a deciding set. Suljovic’s slow play put Anderson off during the match and the frustration was amplified as they played in front of an empty room. He was also fuming at where Suljovic was standing at his table, meaning Anderson cut in front of him before Suljovic threw, which was putting off the Scotsman. Anderson was angry both during and after the match. He had been 1-0 up in sets and then Suljovic missed three darts to go 2-1 up in sets, with Anderson already frustrated who knows what would have happened had he gone behind then. As it was Anderson would get clean swept in the next set to leave the match on a knifes edge and then fall behind 3-2 after the fifth set as Suljovic won six consecutive legs. Anderson had to channel the frustration into throwing check out doubles more often. A 106 check out in the first leg of the sixth set, an eleven-dart leg, and a 156 to close out the third leg helped as the match went to the deciding set. Having missed 36 doubles through the match Anderson hit the mad house to lead 1-0 before winning the next two legs to win through, taking another six consecutive legs off Suljovic. Devon Petersen was his next round opponent after the South African had been on his equal deepest ever run at the World Championships having beaten Irishman Steve Lennon 3-1 and Englishman Jason Lowe 4-0. Anderson would take Peterson out in straight sets to set up the quarter finals clash with what looked the form player of the tournament (alongside Chisnall) in van Duijvenbode. In the other quarter of the draw both Mervyn King (with wins over the man who had eliminated Mathers, Max Hopp 3-1 and then a 4-0 whitewash of the man who would go on and be runner up in the 2021 PDC Premier League, Jose De Sousa) and Vincent van der Voort (defeating fellow Dutch player Ron Meulencamp 3-2 before upsetting Nathan Aspinall 4-2, thus giving Aspinall only one win (3-2 over Scott Waites) in a tournament he had secured 5 and 4 wins in over 2019 and 2020, the only two years he had participated, to make the semifinals on both occasions) had rolled back the years to move into round 4 but both fell at this stage, King losing 4-1 to Gerwyn Price and van der Voort losing 4-2 to Daryl Gurney. The Welshman and Northern Irishmen were then set to meet at the quarter final stage. Gurney’s journey had started against confident Irishman William O’Connor and the match went to a deciding set with Gurney squeezing into the next round. His next win was much more comfortable, 4-1 over Chris Dobey before his fourth-round win over van der Voort. Price, who had been such a controversial figure at times in the previous world championship, survived a deciding set against Welsh compatriot Jamie Lewis 3-2 (Lewis’s run of 2018 a distant memory by now.) Price then played another deciding leg against Brendan Dolan in the next round and again came through it, this time 4 sets to 3, thus the King match was his most comfortable to that point in terms of final score line. The quarter finals saw Price survive yet another close match that went to a deciding set in this tournament (his third.) Price led the match 2 sets to 0 by winning six of the first seven legs of the match. Gurney won the next set 3 legs to 1 and replicated that score in the next set to tie things up at 2-2. Price won the next leg as he checked out 143 to have the third set in a row read 3 legs to 1, but this time to the Welshman. A 72 check out in the deciding leg of the sixth set had the Welshman shouting for joy on stage once more. Gurney then won six straight legs to tie the match up at 4-4. A 107 check out in the first leg of the seventh set swung momentum back his way but Gurney then held his own throw, this time with a 130 finish. Price fairly comfortably held throw in the next leg and with Gurney missing the bull for the leg Price had a shot at a 107 check out but did not get a dart at it. Gurney hit double 8 to put the match into a final eliminating leg, with Price having the first visit. Both players started nervously but Gurney had first shot at a check out, failing to even get a dart at a finish for 108, and tops became Price’s best friend with his next dart. He had survived by one visit to the oche! Stephen Bunting went 4-1 sets up before letting Krzysztof Ratajski into the match as the Pole won two legs on the trot. The Englishman steadied and won the next set to take the match by 5 sets to 3. For the second successive match Gary Anderson did a job on his opponent. Dirk van Duijvenbode won the first set of the clash, but The Flying Scotsman then won five straight sets to take the match out by five sets to one. Yet this 5-1 score line would not be the largest of the quarters. The match that most thought might be the closest turned into a fizzer as it finished 5-0. For a Michael van Gerwen match this was usually no big deal, except that in this case he was on the losing side as Dave Chisnall only conceded 7 legs in the whole match and averaged 107.34 against MvG in a PDC World Championship quarter final! Chisnall thew 14 180s with three ton plus check outs and in set 4 leg 4 played out a remarkable leg against van Gerwen. Chisnall opened with 180 and van Gerwen replicated before Chisnall doubled up on his 180. Van Gerwen replied with 140 before Chisnall stepped up to the oche and hit the treble 20, the treble 19 but came inside the double 12. MvG threw the treble 20, treble 19 and double 12 almost to show Chisnall how to do it, but also leaving tops for the leg but with his second dart Chizzy hit double 6 for the leg (an 11 darter.) Some have claimed it the greatest darts leg ever and it left Chizzy four sets to nil up. By winning the next set Chisnall would make sure van Gerwen would miss his first world championship final since 2018 and only his second in the five years since 2016. In the first semifinal Gerwyn Price fell 3-1 behind in sets to Stephen Bunting early. The Welshman evened things up only to fall 4-3 behind once more. He then won three straight sets (3-1, 3-0 and 3-1) to take out the match and become the first Welshman to make a PDC World Championship final. In the other semifinal Chisnall was chasing his first world championship final since losing to Martin Adams in the BDO in 2010, whilst Anderson was chasing a return to the main stage at a tournament, he himself said he did not expect to have gone so deep into. Anderson led Dave Chisnall early 3-1 and then 4-3 later in the match before winning six legs straight, as he had done a couple of times before in this tournament and therefore take the last two sets of the match 3-0 to join Price in the final. In the final Anderson jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first set and missed a double 18 for a clean sweep and then another two darts at the leg before a double 6 from Price put the set back on throw and the Welshman held his throw and then broke Anderson in the deciding leg. Anderson then went a leg down in the next set only to come back and win it 3-1. Price then rattled off four sets in a row, winning 12 legs and conceding just 3 along the way to lead 5-1. Price then went 2-0 up in the seventh set but missed double 12 for the set and then three darts for the set on his next visit and what happened in leg one to Anderson would now happen to Price as his Scottish opponent won the leg and then the next two to draw within three of the Welshman. Price missed the bull for the next set when he was 2-1 up and Anderson pushed that set into another deciding leg. This time it was the Iceman who held his nerve to throw tops for the 14th time in the match and go within a set of the match. Set nine saw Price go two legs up and he had a shot at 170, aiming to replicate the big fish Ted Hankey scored to win a BDO world championship. He failed to get a shot at a check out but on his next visit he missed two and Anderson moved the game into another leg. The fourth leg saw Price try and check out 116 but his fourth match dart came under the tops required. He then replicated Peter Wright’s finish of the year before by missing two at double 10 but unlike Snakebite he missed his third dart at double 10 for the championship. He then blew three darts at double 5 for the next leg and Anderson moved the set into a deciding leg once again which he won to put the match into a tenth set. Price then missed two leg darts in the next set but with Anderson unable to convert an attempt at 167 he had another shot at a check out but threw 5 and missed the 1 so busted the leg only to watch Anderson throw 70 and lead 1-0. Anderson then missed two darts for a 2-0 leg lead, but Price missed another two double attempts on his next visit and the Scotsman went 2-0 up. In the next leg Price finally secured a double (tops) to win a leg and he was back. With Anderson on 33 Price missed tops to convert 104 but this time his opponent did not take full advantage and with a second chance he hit the double 10 to put the set into the matches fourth successive deciding leg. On throw Price moved clear and had his first shot at a check out, 140 but a 168 visit by Anderson the visit before put Price’s throw under some pressure. Price only got 60 to leave 80 but Anderson was unable to convert 134 when he missed the second tops that he was going for (having already hit treble 18 and tops once.) Price got treble 20 but his second and third darts missed the chance to win the match. Anderson missed three darts for the set on his next visit and with his 12th match dart he hit the double 5 to become the first Welsh PDC World Champion, also joining Richie Burnett, Leighton Rees, Mark Webster and Wayne Warren as world darts champions overall. Technically on the day he won it there were two Welsh world darting champions as Warren had won the final BDO world darts champion having taken that title late January 2020 and even if the BDO World Championship had run in 2021 Warren would have been reigning champion for two more weeks. Earlier that year Wales had won the PDC World Cup with Johnny Clayton and Gerwyn Price. Clayton would also go on to become the next Premier League winner after Price had to withdraw because of the pandemic. By winning the title Price also picked up the number one spot in the world. Welsh darts, and their number one player, Gerwyn Price were certainly on top of the world!
​2021/2022
The 2022 edition saw a unique occurrence not only for Australia but in the PDC World championships as Ray and Ky Smith became the first father and son pair to play in the same championships. At the Ally Pally Damon Heta and Simon Whitlock returned as did Gordon Mathers who got a start as a the best PDC card holder reservist for the competition when some players withdrew. As well as the five Aussies Ben Robb returned to the big stage.
First up would be Ray and he would put pay to the challenge of Jamie Hughes by 3 sets to one. The next day his son stepped up to the same oche but could not repeat the result as he fell to Maik Kuivenhoven 3-1. Mathers then took to the stage on the same night but suffered the same scoreline, this time to Jason Heaver of England. Two days later and Smith returned where he defeated Devon Peterson 3-0. A day later and Simon Whitlock fell to Martijn Kleermaker 3-1 but the following day Damon Heta also made it past Christmas in the competition when he defeated Luke Woodhouse 3-1 (five of the first six matches with Aussies involved finished with that scoreline!) As for Robb he fell to Rusty Jake Rodriguez of Austria in the first round on December 20 by three legs to one!
After Christmas Smith was first back on the stage for the Aussies and he defeated Florian Hempel of Germany 4-1. Damon Heta then fell 4-2 to Peter Wright the following night. Thus, on the 30th of December Raymond Smith stood at the oche as the only man from the Asia Pacific left in the tournament. Remarkably should he win the match he would have qualified for a 2-year PDC tour card on prize money from this competition alone! Mervyn King was on a great run of his own and stopped Smith with a tight 4 sets to 3 win.
Having defeated Heta Wright went on to win his quarter of the draw with victories over Ryan Searle 4-1 and a tight 5-4 win over youngster Callan Rydz. King on the other hand met another man in the midst of a career revival and fell 5-0 to James Wade (Wade having eliminated Simon Whitlock’s conqueror Martijn Kleermaker in the previous round.)
Gary Anderson joined Wright in the bottom half of the draw having seen off the challenge of Adrian Lewis, Ian White, and Rob Cross (2 world champions and White the last losing finalist of the News of the World world championships) before eliminating the up and comer Luke Humphries 5-2. The last of the semi finalists would be contested between reigning world champion Gerwyn Price (who had eliminated Dirk van Duijvenbode 4-1 in the fourth round) and Michael Smith, who had seen off Price’s World Cup partner in Jonny Clayton in a deciding set at 4-3. The final quarter final would go the way of Englishman Smith, thus ending Price’s chance of retaining the Sid Waddell Trophy. Smith eliminating Price in another deciding leg, this time 5-4.
Michael Smith would eliminate Wade 6-3 in the all English semi final whilst in the all Scottish affair it would be Peter Wright who would overcome Anderson 6-4 to set up a Wright v Smith final.
Wright would start strongly and won the first two sets three legs to one before Smith secured his first leg 3-1 and then held his nerve to win the deciding leg in the fourth set. Wright then did the same in the next set to return to the lead only for Smith to rattle off 3-1 and 3-0 sets to take the lead for the first time in the match at four sets to three. Wright then won the next set 3-1 only for Smith to gain the deciding leg in the next set to return to the lead. He then lost a deciding leg in the next set and the two players stood at the oche with the score at five sets all in the race to seven. Peter Wright would then win all of the legs in the next set and with that confidence he took out the next set three legs to one to become the World Champion for the second time in his career, winning 7-5 in the final over Michael Smith.
2022/2023
​The 2022/2023 PDC World Championships was an edition not full of highlights for the Australian and New Zealand playing contingent. Ben Robb would be the first player eliminated in the event as he failed to do what countryman Preston Ridd did in December 2010 as he fell to Mickey Mansell (the same man who eliminated Robb’s good friend Kiwi Haupai Puha two years previous.)
For the Australians Mal Cuming debuted on the Ally Pally stage against a man who would go on quite a run after his 3-0 victory over Cuming, in Scotsman Alan Soutar. The next night Simon Whitlock would notch up a win with a 3-2 victory over Christian Perez of the Philippines but as the scoreline indicates he certainly did not have it all his own way. A day later Raymond Smith could not copy the heroics of the previous campaign as he fell 3-0 to the Czech Republic’s Karel Sedlaceck. Damon Heta then disposed of Adrian Lewis on what could quite possible be the two-time World Champions last appearance on that stage, Heta not losing a set in the 3-0 win. Whitlock then took on Jose De Sousa in his third-round match but his getting through by the thinnest of margins ended as he fell to the Portuguese player 3-2.  Damon Heta was the only Aussie to return after Christmas but his progress was stopped three days alter as he fell 4-0 to Joe Cullen, the man who had famously put an end to then rising star Corey Cadby’s only World Championship campaign back in December 2016.
Soutar went on to defeat Daryl Gurney 3-0, Danny Noppert 4-2 before falling to German Gabriel Clemens 4-1. Clemens would face Gerwyn Price in their quarter of the draw after the Welshman knocked out Luke Woodhouse 3-1, then Raymond van Barneveld on his return to the World Championships, 4-0 and De Sousa 4-1 (De Sousa having gone on to eliminate Ryan Searle in another deciding set, this time 4-3, after doing the business against Whitlock.) Clemens would cause the upset to make the semi final after defeating Price comfortably 5-1.
Joe Cullen’s progress after Damon Heta was stopped by Michael Smith, 4-1, after Smith had survived a scare form another German, just getting past Martin Schindler 4-3 in the previous round. Stephen Bunting was rolling back the years as he defeated the joyous American Leonard Gates 3-1 and then Dave Chisnall 4-2. Luke Humphries, who had been quickly rising up the ranks in the PDC, was Bunting’s next victim with a 4-1 win securing the bullet with a match against Smith. Despite an average over 97 it was one match too far for Bunting as he fell 5-3 to Smith.
The bottom half of the draw would turn out to be quite a European affair. Robb’s conqueror Mansell would be eliminated by Peter Wright, looking to retain his world title. Wright would fall in the next round to a Belgian in Kim Huybrechts. However, it would be another Belgian, Dimitri Van den Bergh, who would eliminate Huybrechts in the next round, 4-0. Van den Bergh would face a quarter final again Jonny Clayton after Clayton had seen off young sensation Josh Rock 4-3 (Rock having eliminated former two-time World Championship semi-finalist Nathan Aspinall by the same scoreline in the previous round.) Van den Bergh secured his first PDC World Championship semi final with a 5-3 victory. The last section was dominated by the Dutch and the English with Michael van Gerwen facing off against countryman Dirk van Duijvenbode and another former world champion in Rob Cross taking on fellow Englishman Chris Dobey. Only one former world champion would make it through these matches though as Cross fell 4-2 to Dobey (who eliminated another former world champion in Gary Anderson 4-2 in the previous round) whilst van Gerwen won his all-Dutch affair, 4-1. With a 5-0 whitewash it was van Gerwen who would face off Van Den Bergh for a spot in the final.
Van Gerwen continued his momentum with a 6-0 semi final win, meaning he entered the final having dropped only three games all competition. Smith dropped two sets in the semi final alone, defeating Clemens 5-1. Thus, a Dutchman and an Englishman made the Final. For the World championships though the prospect of two countries making their debut in the Final in the one match was very enticing but for Belgium and Germany it was not to be this time. Instead for the 5th time in 30 editions a player from England faced off against a player form the Netherlands. The record read 2-2 and it was the second time Smith would play van Gerwen in the final in the previous five years both players having since gone on to lose a final in the years in between their last match in the final.
As most expected, van Gerwen started the stronger and won the first set 3-1. Smith held his nerve though and won the next two legs 3-1. Then van Gerwen stirred and after a whitewash 3-0 win in the fourth set he took out the fifth 3-2 to regain the match lead. This time the man from St Helens would not be rattled though and Smith won the next three sets in a row, 3-2, 3-1 and 3-0. He might have been a leg away from a remarkable win but van Gerwen was not done yet and won the deciding leg in the next set. When it went to a deciding leg in the 11th at 6-4 there was a general feeling that van Gerwen would win and go on and take the match away from Smith. However, the Englishman stood up for the fight and won the deciding leg to win the final 7-4 and win the PDC World Championship for the first time, becoming the 5th Englishman to do so and having overcome the two losses he had endured, one to van Gerwen and the other in the previous Final of this competition.
The Future
Over the last few years more new names have been entered onto the legendary Sid Waddell trophy but there are now plenty of world champions still on the circuit. The hope would be for a PDC world champion to come from beyond England, Scotland, Wales, The Netherlands and Canada in the near future.

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