2016 PDC World Darts Championship

The 2016 PDC World Darts Championship was the twenty-third World Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation since it separated from the British Darts Organisation. The event was held at the Alexandra Palace, London, from 17 December 2015 to 3 January 2016.
Gary Anderson was the defending champion, having won his first world title in the PDC World Darts Championship|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.
There were 654 maximums thrown during the event, beating the record of 625 from the previous year. 34 of these were produced in the final, which was the record for a professional match for a year until the 2017 World Darts Championship final produced 42.
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 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, 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 was allocated as follows:

Qualifiers

Order of Merit

Pro Tour

European Pro Tour

PDPA Qualifier
First round qualifier

Ricky Evans

Preliminary round qualifier

Andy Boulton

International qualifiers

First round qualifiers

Preliminary round qualifiers

Results

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.

	Player	Score	Player	Av.
83.03		2–1		79.27
64.73		0–2		74.19
63.64		0–2		69.25
87.69		2–1		84.11
91.79		2–0		77.40
78.83		0–2		78.34
89.33		2–1		88.26
77.12		0–2		88.01

Statistics

Player

Eliminated

Played

Sets Won

Sets Lost

Legs Won

Legs Lost

Leg Breaks

100+

140+

170+

180s

High checkout

Checkout Av.%

Average

Gary Anderson#expr: 3 + 4 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 #expr: 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 5 #expr: 9 + 14 + 12 + 16 + 18 + 26 #expr: 2 + 10 + 1 + 6 + 7 + 19 #expr: 8 + 8 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 11 #expr: 16 + 35 + 15 + 31 + 35 + 53 #expr: 8 + 16 + 10 + 14 + 26 + 28 #expr: 0 + 3 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 3 #expr: 3 + 8 + 7 + 10 + 8 + 15

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:

Country

Channel