World Grand Prix (darts)
The World Grand Prix is a professional darts tournament that has been held at the Leicester Arena in Leicester, England since 2021. The tournament was traditionally held in Dublin, Ireland every October. It is played in Sets format, and is run by the Professional Darts Corporation. The tournament is the only one in the PDC which currently uses the "[Glossary of darts#Double in|double in, double out]" format.
The current champion is Luke Littler, who defeated Luke Humphries 6–1 in the 2025 final to win his first World Grand Prix title.
The tourmament's original venue was the Casino Rooms in Rochester, Kent in 1998 and 1999, and then for one year only in 2000 at the Crosbie Cedars Hotel in Rosslare, County Wexford. In 2001, the tournament moved further north to the Citywest in Dublin. In 2009, the tournament moved from the Reception Hall at the main Citywest Hotel, to the newly completed bigger venue on site, the Citywest Hotel Convention Centre. In 2012, the tournament moved back to the Reception Hall for that year, before returning to the Convention Centre in 2013.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 tournament was held at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, and since 2021, it has been held at the Leicester Arena. When the World Grand Prix was founded in 1998, it replaced the earlier World Pairs tournament which ran from 1995 to 1997.
The World Grand Prix was sponsored by bookmakers Paddy Power from 2001 to 2003, before Sky Bet took over in 2004. The subsidiary Sky Poker was the tournament's sponsor in 2008. In 2010, online gambling company Bodog became the event's title sponsor, while PartyPoker.com took over as the main sponsor in 2011. In 2016, Unibet took over as sponsor, with BoyleSports sponsoring the event since 2019.
Although he has dominated the event with eleven title wins, Phil Taylor has been knocked out of the World Grand Prix five times in the first round. In 2001, he lost 2–1 to qualifier Kevin Painter. in 2004, he was beaten 2–0 by Andy Callaby. in 2007, he lost 2–0 to Adrian Gray. in 2015, he was beaten 2–0 by Vincent van der Voort, and in 2016, he was beaten 2–1 by Steve West.
History
Tournament format
The tournament is unique as it is the only event in the PDC darts calendar that uses the "double in, double out" format, in which players must start on a double or the bullseye to start scoring and do the same to win a leg. The inaugural edition in 1998 featured matches consisting of sets played to the best of three legs, with Phil Taylor winning the final 13–8 against Rod Harrington.The following year this changed to best of five legs per set. Furthermore, a group stage was introduced in 1999, with there only being four seeded players for the event, all of whom reached the semi-finals. In 2000, the tournament reverted to being a straight knock-out and has remained so ever since.
The double-start format also makes landing a perfect nine-dart finish even more difficult, as it limits the number of combinations and guarantees that a player must finish on the bullseye. There were two famous near misses in the first two years, the first with Phil Taylor in the 1998 final against Rod Harrington, when Taylor was distracted by loud commentary from Sid Waddell just before throwing the eighth dart before he missed the bullseye; and the second in the 1999 semi final, when Harrington missed the bullseye against Taylor.
Brendan Dolan became the first player to hit a double-start nine-dart finish, achieving the feat in his match against James Wade at the 2011 World Grand Prix; Wade and Robert Thornton both hit nine-darters in their match at the 2014 event, the first time this happened in any televised event. On all three occasions, the leg started with a score of 160, followed by 180, followed by finishing 161 with treble 20, treble 17, and bullseye.
Location
After first serving as host venue for the 2001 event, the Citywest Hotel in Dublin became the regular home of the tournament. In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Grand Prix was relocated to England due to the Citywest being used for health services, with the event being held in Leicester since 2021.Records and statistics
Total finalist appearances
- Active players are shown in bold
- Only players who reached the final are included
- In the event of identical records, players are sorted by date first achieved
Nine-dart finishes
Three nine-darters have been thrown at the World Grand Prix. The first one was in 2011, the other two happened in the same game in 2014, notable as being the only televised match which has had nine-darters from both players.| Player | Year | Method | Opponent | Result | |||
 High averagesAn average over 100 in a match in the World Grand Prix has been achieved 24 times, of which Phil Taylor is responsible for 9.World Team ChampionshipThe World Team Championship event which preceded the introduction of this event was held between 1995 and 1997.
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