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.
Terry Jenkins and Kyle Anderson recorded both televised nine-dart finishes during the event, in their first-round matches against Per Laursen and Ian White, respectively.
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 (as determined at the PDPA Qualifying event held in Barnsley on 25 November 2013), 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
Stuart Kellett
Jelle Klaasen
Jamie Lewis
Darren Webster
Ronny Huybrechts
Joe Cullen
Arron Monk
Mensur Suljović
John Henderson
Dennis Smith
Ricky Evans
Kevin McDine
Dean Winstanley
Ross Smith
Mark Dudbridge
Steve Brown
European Order of MeritFirst round qualifiers
Max Hopp
Mareno Michels
Jarkko Komula
Tomas Seyler
PDPA QualifierFirst round qualifier
Matt Clark
Preliminary round qualifier
Ian Moss
Challenge Tour QualifierPreliminary round qualifier
Ben Ward
International qualifiersFirst round qualifiers
Darin Young
Beau Anderson
Kyle Anderson
Preliminary round qualifiers
Julio Barbero
Morihiro Hashimoto
Royden Lam
Mohd Latif Sapup
Per Laursen
Zoran Lerchbacher
Paul Lim
Dennis Lindskjold
Colin McGarry
Devon Petersen
Edward Santos
Rob Szabo
Gino Vos
Andree Welge
Colin Osborne
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.