2011 PDC World Darts Championship

The 2011 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship was the 18th World Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation since it separated from the British Darts Organisation.

Phil Taylor was the defending champion, having won the 2010 tournament. He was knocked out of the tournament at the quarter final stage by Mark Webster, who in turn was defeated by Adrian Lewis in the semi-finals. Lewis went on to win the tournament, beating Gary Anderson 7-5 in the final to become only the fifth different PDC World Champion and the first to have won it without having won the rival BDO World Championship.^[1]

The event took place from 16 December 2010 until 3 January 2011, with two breaks for Christmas and New Year. The tournament was held for the fourth time at London's Alexandra Palace. A total of 72 players took part, 16 of whom began at the preliminary round stage, with the 8 winners joining the remaining 56 players in the first round proper.

Format and qualifiers

The televised stages featured 72 players from a minimum of 22 countries. The top 32 players in the PDC Order of Merit on 29 November 2010 were seeded for the tournament.^[2] They were joined by the 16 highest non qualified players in the Players Championship Order of Merit from events played on the PDC Pro Tour.

These 48 players were joined by two PDPA qualifiers (which were determined at a PDPA Qualifying event held in Derby on November 29, 2010), and 22 international players: the 4 highest names in the European Order of Merit not already qualified, the 2 highest names in the North American Order of Merit not already qualified and 16 further international qualifiers determined by the PDC and PDPA.

Some of the international players, such as the 4 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.

1^ Rob Modra was unable to get a visa, so therefore, he was replaced by Kirk Shepherd, the next highest ranked player in the Players Championship Order of Merit.^[3]

Prize money

The 2011 World Championship featured a prize fund of £1,000,000 – the same as in the previous year. The Third Place Playoff did not take place this year.

The prize money is allocated as follows:^[2]

Winner (1): £200,000

Runner-Up (1): £100,000

Semi Finals (2): £50,000

Quarter Finals (4): £25,000

Third Round losers (8): £15,000

Second Round losers (16): £10,000

First Round losers (32): £6,000

Preliminary Round losers (8): £3,500

Nine darter: £10,000

Schedule

Preliminary round

The preliminary round were played from Dec 16 to Dec 23 with one match per day. The format was best of 7 legs.

Last 64

The winner of the eight Preliminary Round matches joined 56 other players in the First Round.

The First Round draw took place on Tuesday 30 November live in the studio of Sky Sports News, and was conducted by 1983 World champion Keith Deller and Sky Sports darts' analyst and former World Matchplay champion, Rod Harrington.^[4]

Statistics

Television coverage

Sky Sports broadcasted all 72 matches live in high-definition, in the UK. Dave Clark presented the coverage with analysis from Rod Harrington and Eric Bristow. They also commentated on matches along with Sid Waddell, John Gwynne, Nigel Pearson, Rod Studd and Stuart Pyke. This was the first PDC World Championship where Dave Lanning wasn't commentating, having retired prior to the tournament. Due to the ill health of Harrington, Wayne Mardle replaced him post-Christmas and featured both commentating and co-presenting alongside Clark. Former England cricketer Andrew Flintoff was also a guest commentator twice during tournament. Interviews were handled by either Clark, Bristow or Studd.

In the Netherlands, SBS6 broadcasted all matches live through a live stream on the SBS6 website and Sport1 broadcasted all the matches on television, both with commentary provided by Jacques Nieuwlaat and Leo Oldenburger.

In Germany, it was broadcast live on Sport1 with co-commentary provided by Roland Scholten.

In Australia, it was broadcast live on Fox Sports.

References

External links

• The official site of the Ladbrokes.com PDC World Darts Championship
• 2011 World Championship NetZone; Results and Schedule
• 2011 PDC World Darts Championship at Sky Sports