The 2007 Tropicana International Darts League was a darts tournament held at the Triavium in Nijmegen, Netherlands from May 4–12. The tournament was sponsored by Tropicana — a Dutch-based soft drink manufacturer. Raymond van Barneveld entered the tournament as three-times and defending champion. Darts history was made when the tournament became the first televised event to witness two nine dart finishes. On May 8, Phil Taylor hit his fourth perfect game on television against Raymond van Barneveld and the following night Tony O'Shea matched the effort against Adrian Lewis. Despite the presence of current BDO and PDC World Champions and four other former world champions in the field, none progressed beyond the quarter-finals. 36 year old Gary Anderson won his first major title with a 13-9 victory over fellow BDO/WDF player Mark Webster.
Prize fund
The total prize fund is €135,000
2007 controversy
The staging of the 2007 IDL has been filled with controversy. There have been several format changes, disagreements and even court cases surrounding the event. In 2006 the BDO secured an agreement for 28 of their players to participate in the event until 2010. However, as the popularity of the PDC circuit grew in the Netherlands, the organisers decided to renege on the deal and invite only 12 BDO players. The remaining 20 players would qualify from the PDC including their top 12 ranked players plus four wildcards and four from a PDC/PDPA qualifying event. This led to a threat from the BDO to take court action against the organisers who wanted their agreement upholding. A compromise was reached and the organisers introduced a preliminary round. The original 16 BDO/WDF players who believed they had missed out were to be joined by a further four automatic qualifiers from the PDC Order of Merit and a further four players from an already confirmed qualifying event in April. This expanded the field from 32 to 56 players. However the sponsors of the four wildcard players were upset that their players had been relegated to the preliminary round when they felt they had an agreement to be automatically into the televised stages. The BDO also felt that all 28 of their players should not have to face a preliminary round. The dispute was resolved on April 25 when a Dutch court rejected the claims of the four wildcard players. Three of the players managed to qualify from the preliminary round with only van der Voort missing out.
The field was scheduled to contain 56 players with 12 automatically from each organisation going into the group stages. Some players from the BDO withdrew citing the uncertainty over the staging of the event as their reason. A preliminary round will now consist of:
The BDO/WDF players ranked 13 to 28 at the cut-off date Dirk Hespeels and Andy Murray were added to the field to replace the withdrawn players
The PDC players ranked 13 to 16 at the cut-off date
