World Darts Championship: Gary Anderson ready to show experience pays – ‘I’m averaging higher than all of them’ | Darts News

Many darts fans will head to Ally Pally focused on the talented youngsters coming through the ranks, but Gary Anderson is out to show he’s still a better player than them.

Two-time world champion Anderson has been in sensational form of late, rediscovering his love of darts, reaching the semi-finals of a Grand Slam where he lost to Luke Littler in an all-time classic.

The 53-year-old will now focus on a stage where he has had so much success – Alexandra Palace – as he prepares to face either Geoffrey de Graaf or Rashad Sweeting in the second round.

While the Flying Scotsman is a household name among darts fans, the recent spotlight has been on the likes of Littler, Gian van Veen and Mike De Decker, who are rising through the ranks and causing a stir.

Anderson, however, is quietly confident that experience in the biggest tournament of all will always pay off, and an average that beats rising stars also helps.

“Yeah, it’s getting better. But at the same time, I try to tell people that the old guys are still playing well,” Anderson said.

“I’m still probably taller than everyone else put together. So yeah, they’ve got youth on their side, which is a bit of a downer for us guys because we want to be young again, but they’ve got something. : a great future ahead of them.

“Darts will be very good in the next four, five, six years.”

While Anderson is happy to see so many new players having so much success, he worries that the sport is their only source of income.

Indeed, he would argue that they have a “safety net” to fall back on due to the unpredictable nature of darts.

“It’s great for young people, they come straight out of school, they make so much money, fantastic, absolutely fantastic. But if something goes wrong, they’ll never have a trade to go to,” he said.

“If something happens, they couldn’t throw darts, they got dartitis, they can’t play darts anymore, what are they going to do, they dropped out of school, they’ve been doing darts for four or five years, they’re stuck now, there there is not much.

“I’ve always said trade up, have something behind you to fall back on. That’s for the safety net.”

“I didn’t do so bad.” Ando remembers the glory of the World

Anderson is in an elite group of players who have gone back-to-back at Worlds, with only Phil Taylor and Adrian Lewis joining him in the feat.

Of his two wins, beating the all-time player at Taylor is his highlight, but he admits he came into 2017 wanting a hat-trick and disappointed to lose to Michael van Gerwen in the final.

“Well, it’s winning twice, you know, but I’ve been to five finals,” Anderson said.

“Of those two, Phil has to play. You know Phil is the legend he is and how many times he’s won championships on that stage.

“Now you’ve got young guys out there that will never get a chance to play Phil Taylor.

“So even if Phil beat me it wouldn’t bother me, I was playing Phil Taylor in the final.”

“I think when you win, the pressure goes away,” added the Scot.

“It doesn’t matter what happens after that, your name will always be on that trophy.

“When I won it the second time, the third time, I went for a hat trick.

“There have been guys that have won it back-to-back. I don’t think they’ve done it three times in a row. But I’ve made it to five finals, so I’ve won it twice I didn’t do bad there.”

Expectations. Absolutely none.

Some players will enter the World Cup with specific goals in mind, but for Anderson, the only goal is to “play well” and hope that the results will follow.

“You want to play well in every tournament. No doubt about it,” he said.

“But we’re coming to the end of it. You know, the end of the year, so we’ve just come to the end of the Pro Tour, the end of the Grand Slam, the end of the Worlds. So that should give the guys time to prepare for the big one.

“I can play well one day and absolutely terrible the next day.

“So I don’t expect anything right now. I just want to go up there and play well.

“It’s probably the first big stage, especially for rookies. And the first time they’re there, it’s one of the biggest stages any darts player will play. Well, it’s the biggest stage.

“Just the sheer length of the stage and the crowd behind it. So the first time is a bit surreal and a different atmosphere.”

When will the World Darts Championship be held?

The tournament kicks off at Alexandra Palace on Sunday 15 December with three first and one second round matches on the opening night.

There will be live darts on each of the next eight days, including seven afternoons, with the usual three-day break from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, before returning for round three and a double session on December 27.

Rounds three and four will run until December 30 before taking a break on New Year’s Eve, with the quarter-finals played over two sessions on New Year’s Day before the semi-finals on January 2 and the final on Friday January 3.

You can find the full schedule for this year’s tournament here here.

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