Venue Alexandra Palace Organisation(s) PDC | Location London | |
Dates 17 December 2015–3 January 2016 Country England, United Kingdom Format Sets
Final – best of 13 | ||
The 2016 William Hill World Darts Championship was the 23rd World Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation since it separated from the British Darts Organisation. The event started on 17 December 2015 and concluded on 3 January 2016. It was held at the Alexandra Palace, London, England.
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Gary Anderson was the defending champion, having won his first world title in the 2015 final by beating 16-times champion Phil Taylor 7–6. He retained his title by beating Adrian Lewis 7–5. He also threw a nine-dart finish in his semi-final against Jelle Klaasen to add a bonus £15,000 to his winnings, and hit two maximum checkouts of 170 in the progress. Anderson became the fourth player to defend the world title following their first win, after Eric Bristow, Raymond van Barneveld and Lewis. He was also the sixth player to ever successfully defend a world championship, along with Phil Taylor and Martin Adams. There were 654 maximums thrown during the event, beating the record of 625 from last year. 34 of these were produced in the final which is a record for a professional match.
Three-time world champion John Part was a notable absentee in this tournament, having failed to qualify for the first time since joining the PDC in 1997.
Format
The tournament featured 72 players. The top 32 players on the PDC Order of Merit on 30 November 2015 (after the Players Championship Finals) 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 2015 PDC Pro Tour.
These 48 players were joined by two PDPA qualifiers (as determined at a PDPA Qualifying event held in Coventry on 30 November 2015), and 22 international players: the four highest names on the European Order of Merit not already qualified, and 18 further international qualifiers 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 entered straight into the first round, while others, having won qualifying events in their countries, were entered into the preliminary round.
Thanawat Gaweenuntawong became the first player from Thailand to play at a World Darts Championship.
Prize money
The 2016 World Championship featured a prize fund of at least £1,500,000 - an increase of £250,000 from the 2015 tournament.
The prize money is allocated as follows:
Preliminary round
The format in the preliminary round was extended from a best-of-seven legs to a best-of-three sets format. One match was played in the first eight sessions with the winners playing their first round matches at the end of the session.
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:
† Sky Sports F1 was renamed as Sky Sports Darts for the duration of the tournament.