2003 PDC World Darts Championship
The 2003 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship was the tenth World Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation since it split from the British Darts Organisation in 1993. The tournament took place between 27 December 2002 and 4 January 2003 at the Circus Tavern, Purfleet, England. Ladbrokes took over sponsorship of the event from Skol.
The field at the televised stages expanded for the first time since 1999. An extra qualifying round was introduced increasing the total number of players from 32 to 40. John Part defeated the defending champion and number one seed, Phil Taylor, in the final to end two incredible runs by Taylor – eight successive World titles, and 44 successive victories at the Circus Tavern.
This was Part's second world championship having also won the 1994 BDO Championship.
The Qualifying Criteria for the World Championship was as follows
-Top 32 of the Order of Merit
- 4 PDPA Qualifiers
- Australian Qualifier
- Dutch Qualifier
- USA Qualifier
- SP 9-Dart challenge with The People NewspaperSeeds
Prize money
- Nine-dart finish: A diamond, worth a six figure sum, will be mounted in the bulls eye of a championship dartboard as a unique prize.
Results
First round
All matches are the best of 7 sets.
| Player | Score | Player | |
| 80.11 | Mark Holden  | 4–3 | Dave Smith | 81.65 |
| 83.11 | Bob Anderson | 4–0 |  Al Hedman | 76.36 |
| 81.58 | Reg Harding | 4–3 | Mark Robinson | 83.67 |
| 86.75 | Mick Manning | 4–2 | Lee Palfreyman | 81.13 |
| 85.21 | Simon Whitlock  | 4–2 | Paul Williams | 84.88 |
| 87.84 | Steve Brown  | 4–2 | David Platt | 88.05 |
| 92.99 | Wayne Mardle | 4–0 | Ray Carver | 82.72 |
| 89.85 | Shayne Burgess | 4–2 |  Arjan Moen | 84.07 |
Last 32
Representation from different countries
This table shows the number of players by country in the World Championship, the total number including the 1st round.
