2014 PDC World Darts Championship


The 2014 Ladbrokes World Darts Championship was the 21st World Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation since it separated from the British Darts Organisation. The event took place at the Alexandra Palace, London between 13 December 2013 and 1 January 2014.
Phil Taylor was the defending champion, having won his 16th title in 2013, but he lost 4–3 to Michael Smith in the second round.
Michael van Gerwen won his first World Championship by defeating Peter Wright 7–4 in the final. He became the sixth winner of the event and, at the age of 24, the youngest.
The result also saw him replace Taylor as the new world number one.
A new record of 603 maximum 180 scores were made during the championship, beating the previous best of 588 set in 2012. For the first time in PDC history, there was no Englishman in the final.

Format and qualifiers

The televised stages featured 72 players. The top 32 players in the PDC Order of Merit on 26 November 2013 were seeded for the tournament. They were joined by the 16 highest non-qualified players from the Pro Tour Order of Merit, based on the events played on the 2013 PDC Pro Tour.
These 48 players were joined by two PDPA qualifiers, the highest ranked non-qualified player on the PDC Challenge Tour Order of Merit, and 21 international players: the four highest names in the European Order of Merit not already qualified, and 17 further international qualifiers to be determined by the PDC and PDPA.
Some of the international players, such as the four from the European Order of Merit, and the top American and Australian players were entered straight into the first round, while others, having won qualifying events in their countries, were entered into the preliminary round.
Order of Merit
Pro Tour
  1. Stuart Kellett
  2. Jelle Klaasen
  3. Jamie Lewis
  4. Darren Webster
  5. Ronny Huybrechts
  6. Joe Cullen
  7. Arron Monk
  8. Mensur Suljović
  9. John Henderson
  10. Dennis Smith
  11. Ricky Evans
  12. Kevin McDine
  13. Dean Winstanley
  14. Ross Smith
  15. Mark Dudbridge
  16. Steve Brown
European Order of Merit
First Round Qualifiers
PDPA Qualifier
First Round Qualifier
Preliminary Round Qualifier
Challenge Tour Qualifier
Preliminary Round Qualifier
International Qualifiers
First Round Qualifiers
Preliminary Round Qualifiers
Edward Santos withdrew due to travel problems and was replaced by Colin Osborne, the highest-ranking non-qualified player on the PDC Order of Merit.

Prize money

The 2014 World Championship features a prize fund of at least £1,050,000. The winner's prize money has been increased from £200,000 to £250,000.
The prize money is allocated as follows:

Bracket

The preliminary round was drawn on 30 November, the last 64 draw took place on 2 December 2013 and was made by Rod Harrington and Wayne Mardle. It was shown live on Sky Sports.

Preliminary round

The preliminary round was played in a first to four legs format. One match was played per session with the winners playing their first round matches later on the same day.
PlayerScorePlayerAv.
76.78Rob Szabo 4–3 Ian Moss78.63
84.71Colin McGarry 2–4 Per Laursen91.55
84.03Julio Barbero 4–1 Andree Welge79.65
74.30Dennis Lindskjold 1–4 Colin Osborne89.82
88.01Devon Petersen 4–1 Mohd Latif Sapup82.78
90.25Zoran Lerchbacher 4–1 Ben Ward86.43
84.26Morihiro Hashimoto 4–2 Paul Lim75.26
79.45Gino Vos 1–4 Royden Lam79.40

Last 64

Final

Statistics

Representation from different countries

This table shows the number of players by country in the World Championship, the total number including the Preliminary round.

Broadcasting

The tournament was available in the following countries on these channels:
CountryChannel
United KingdomSky Sports
BBC Radio 5 Live
Czech Republic
Hungary
Romania
Slovakia		Sport TV
GermanySport1/Sport1+
IrelandSky Sports
Middle EastOSN
NetherlandsRTL7
Australia
Italy		Fox Sports
New ZealandSky Sport

Sky Sports also showed the semi-finals and final in 3D in the United Kingdom.