2004 PDC World Darts Championship
| Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tournament information | |||
| Dates | 27 December 2003–4 January 2004 | ||
| Venue | Circus Tavern | ||
| Location | Purfleet, Essex | ||
| Country | England, United Kingdom | ||
| Organisation(s) | PDC | ||
| Format |
Sets Final – best of 13 |
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| Prize fund | £256,000 | ||
| Winners share | £50,000 | ||
| High checkout |
170  Peter Manley Ronnie Baxter
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| Champion(s) | |||
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Phil Taylor
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The 2004 Ladbrokes.com World Championship was the 10th anniversary of the PDC version of the World Darts Championship. An extra preliminary round was introduced bringing the total players at the televised stages to 48. Ladbrokes, who sponsored the event initially for one year in 2003, decided to extend their deal and the prize fund was increased to £256,000. Dutch television station, RTL 5 and Sky Sports both extended their deals with the PDC by three years. PDC chairman Barry Hearn announced that the tournament would be shown in Malaysia on pay-per-view.
Defending champion and number two seed, John Part suffered a surprise third round defeat to Mark Dudbridge. His first match of the 2004 campaign. It was the first time since 1995, when a round-robin format was in operation, that the defending champion had gone out in their first round at the PDC world championship.
The final became only the second ever (and first PDC) world final to go to a sudden death leg. The first time it happened was when Phil Taylor beat Mike Gregory in the 1992 final, Taylor was again involved and came out victorious against Kevin Painter. However, he had to fight from 4–1 down to win his 11th world title.
The two losing semi-finalists came from different ends of darts experience. Fifty-six-year-old Bob Anderson, a World Champion 16 years earlier lost to Painter and Wayne Mardle was making his first PDC World Championship semi-final appearance. Mardle lost to Taylor for the second year running, following a third round defeat as an unseeded player in 2003.
To accommodate the change in the number of entries into the competition to 48, the format of the World Championship was again changed. 16 qualifiers would contest the first round, with the eight winners going through to the second round to meet players ranked between 25 and 32 inclusive in the PDC. These eight winners would go through to join the top 24 in the third round, where the tournament proceeded from the last 32 to the Final.
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