Robert Thornton (darts player)

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Robert Thornton

Personal information
Nickname	'The Thorn'
Date of birth	July 17, 1967 (1967-07-17) (age 40)
Place of birth	Ayrshire, Scotland
Home town	Stevenston, Ayrshire, Scotland
Organisation (see split in darts)
BDO	2002 to 2008
PDC	From May 2008
Current World Ranking	235 (May 2008)
BDO Grand Slam Events - Best Performances
World Ch'ship	QF 2005, 2008
World Masters	Winner 2007
PDC Majors - Best Performances
Other Televised PDC events - Best Performances
Other Tournament Wins
Tournament	Years
Dutch Open Central Scotland Open	2008 2007
Infobox last updated on: February 21, 2008.

Robert Thornton (born July 17, 1967) is a Scottish darts player who competes in Professional Darts Corporation events after his switch from the BDO in May 2008. He is the current holder of the prestigious Winmau World Masters, having produced a major upset to win the title in November 2007.

Thornton only returned to playing darts in 2002, having given up the game to raise his children. ^[1] He qualified for the BDO World Championship for the first time in 2005. He beat Martin Atkins and Tony West before losing to Darryl Fitton in the quarter finals. He then failed to qualify for the 2006 and 2007 events.

His first title came in the Central Scotland Open in April 2007, beating Mike Veitch in the final. He failed to make it through the qualifying event for 2008 BDO World Championship, but managed to make it to the televised stages of the 2007 Winmau World Masters in the same weekend. He then beat Co Stompe, BDO world champion Martin Adams, and Martin Atkins to reach the final. He managed to avenge his defeat by Darryl Fitton at the 2005 Lakeside World Championship to claim his first major title by 7 sets to 5 and win the £25,000 first prize and also a place in the 2008 World Championship - despite having lost earlier in the qualifiers.

His appearance at the 2008 World Championship was only his second visit to Lakeside, and he matched his previous appearance by reaching the quarter-finals. Having beaten John Walton and Tony O'Shea, he lost to defending champion Martin Adams - who gained revenge for his loss at the World Masters.

Thornton's good form continued into 2008 when he won the Dutch Open in February and reached the last eight of the Scottish Open a week later to achieve a career high of fourth in the WDF world rankings and was top of the BDO rankings.

Thornton qualified for the 2008 PDC UK Open via the Pub qualifiers and then went on to switch to the PDC after withdrawing for the Scottish team for the Europe Cup.