A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| 2008 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tournament information | |||
| Dates | 17 December 2007 – 1 January 2008 | ||
| Venue | Alexandra Palace | ||
| Location | London | ||
| Country |  England | ||
| Organisation(s) | PDC | ||
| Format | Legs (preliminaries) Sets (from Round 1) Final – best of 13 | ||
| Prize fund | £589,000 | ||
| Winner's share | £100,000 | ||
| High checkout | |||
| Champion(s) | |||
 John Part | |||
| |||
The 2008 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship was the 15th World Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation since it separated from the British Darts Organisation. The event took place between 17 December 2007 and 1 January 2008 at the Alexandra Palace, London, England.
John Part won his third World Championship, beating the qualifier Kirk Shepherd 7–2 in the final. He joined Phil Taylor, Raymond van Barneveld, Eric Bristow, and John Lowe as the only people to have won more than two world titles, although they have since been joined by Martin Adams, Michael van Gerwen and Glen Durrant. He is also one of six players to have won the PDC World Darts Championship more than once, along with Phil Taylor, Adrian Lewis, Gary Anderson, Michael van Gerwen and Peter Wright. In addition, he became the first player to have won World Championships in three different venues; the Lakeside, the Circus Tavern and the Alexandra Palace.
Raymond van Barneveld was the defending champion having won the PDC World Championship at the first attempt in an epic final against Taylor in 2007. He was knocked out in the third round with a 4–2 loss to Kevin Painter.
Taylor failed to reach the final of the competition for the first time in PDC World Championship history, after losing 5–4 to Wayne Mardle in the quarter-finals.
In addition to several highly ranked players failing to reach the latter stages of the competition, an argument could be made that this tournament had, statistically, the lowest standard of play from any PDC World Championship this millennium. A distinct lack of quality was exhibited across the draw: no single player achieved a 3-dart average of over 100 in any match in the entire tournament, the highest being John Part's average of 99.06 in his second-round match against Mensur Suljovic; additionally, there were only six 3-dart averages of 96 or higher in any match in the entire tournament (see Draw below). Kirk Shepherd, meanwhile, incredibly finished runner-up in the tournament without averaging over 90 in any match he played in the tournament - he is the only player to achieve this feat in any PDC World Championship event this millennium. Shepherd was also the first player making his PDC World Championship debut to reach the final, without having played in a BDO World Championship.
After being staged at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet for 14 years, the tournament moved to the Alexandra Palace in London.[1] The championships had been considered to have outgrown the Circus Tavern whose capacity of 800–1,000 spectators was considerably smaller than some Holsten Premier League darts events in 2007 which saw crowds reaching 5,000. The Alexandra Palace was the venue of the News of the World Darts Championship between 1963 and 1977 and boasts a capacity for 2008 of 2,500.
Format and qualifiers
The televised stages featured 68 players. The top 32 players in the PDC Order of Merit on 12 November 2007 received an automatic place in the World Championship.[2] They were joined by 16 PDPA members and 20 international qualifiers determined by the PDC and PDPA.
The 16 PDPA members were made up from the top eight players (who had not already qualified) in the PDC Pro Tour Events during 2007: Jelle Klaasen, Mark Walsh, Tony Eccles, Michael van Gerwen, Steve Brown, Dave Askew, Jason Clark and Matt Clark.[3]
The final eight qualifiers were determined at a PDPA Qualifying event which was held on 17 November 2007 in Wolverhampton – prior to the Grand Slam of Darts tournament. The successful players were Steve Maish, Jan van der Rassel, Colin Monk, Steve Evans, Jamie Caven, Steve Hine, Kirk Shepherd and Jason Barry. Former world champions John Lowe, Eric Bristow, Keith Deller and Richie Burnett all played in the qualifying rounds but failed to reach the televised stages.
Prize money
The 2008 World Championship featured a prize fund of £589,000. The prize money for earlier round losers was increased, whilst the winner and runner-up prize money was unchanged.[4]
| Position (num. of players) | Prize money (Total: £589,000) | |
|---|---|---|
| Winner | (1) | £100,000 |
| Runner-Up | (1) | £50,000 |
| Semi-finalists | (2) | £22,500 |
| Quarter-finalists | (4) | £15,000 |
| Third round losers | (8) | £10,500 |
| Second round losers | (16) | £7,000 |
| First round losers | (32) | £4,000 |
| Preliminary round losers | (4) | £2,500 |
| Nine-dart finish | (0) | £20,000 |
Draw
Preliminary round
(best of nine legs, played Wednesday 19 December and Thursday 20 December)
| Av. | Player | Score | Player | Av. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 68.85 | Akihiro Nagakawa 
|
2 – 5 |  Anthony Forde
|
69.83 |
| 68.58 | Rizal Barellano 
|
0 – 5 |  Miloslav Navrátil
|
74.96 |
| 60.38 | Alan Bolton 
|
0 – 5 |  Erwin Extercatte
|
63.15 |
| 72.03 | Ashfaque Sayed 
|
0 – 5 |  Shi Yongsheng
|
78.28 |
Draw
Finals
| Quarter-finals (best of 9 sets) 29 December | Semi-finals (best of 11 sets) 30 December | Final (best of 13 sets) 1 January | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Phil Taylor 92.32
| 4 | ||||||||||||
| 9 | Wayne Mardle 92.20
| 5 | ||||||||||||
| 9 | Wayne Mardle 92.36
| 4 | ||||||||||||
| Kirk Shepherd 88.77
| 6 | |||||||||||||
| 5 | Peter Manley 94.27
| 4 | ||||||||||||
| Kirk Shepherd 89.70
| 5 | |||||||||||||
| Kirk Shepherd 85.10
| 2 | |||||||||||||
| 11 | John Part 92.86
| 7 | ||||||||||||
| 15 | Kevin Painter 87.51
| 5 | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Adrian Lewis 86.26
| 2 | ||||||||||||
| 15 | Kevin Painter 91.94
| 2 | ||||||||||||
| 11 | John Part 92.84
| 6 | ||||||||||||
| 11 | John Part 94.81
| 5 | ||||||||||||
| 3 | James Wade 91.48
| 4 | ||||||||||||