2008 World Matchplay Darts
| Stan James World Matchplay | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tournament information | |||
| Dates | 20–26 July | ||
| Venue | Winter Gardens | ||
| Location | Blackpool | ||
| Country | England | ||
| Organisation(s) | PDC | ||
| Format | Legs | ||
| Prize fund | £300,000 | ||
| Winners share | £60,000 | ||
| High checkout |
161  Matt Clark
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| Champion(s) | |||
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Phil Taylor
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The 2008 Stan James World Matchplay was the 15th annual staging of the tournament by the Professional Darts Corporation. The tournament took place from Sunday 20 July to Saturday 26 July. It was staged at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. World number three, James Wade went into the competition as the defending champion and managed to reach the final for the third year in a row, but was defeated by top seed Phil Taylor 18-9 who won his ninth World Matchplay championship.
A total of £300,000 was available for the players, divided based on the following performances:
Winner - £60,000
Runner-up - £30,000
Semi-finalists - £17,000
Quarter-finalists - £12,000
Second round losers - £8,000
First round losers - £4,000
Nine-dart jackpot - £10,000
The qualification process for the World Matchplay differed this year. The top 16 in the PDC Order of the Merit after the 2008 UK Open qualified automatically as the 16 seeds. The other 16 places would be made up of the 16 highest ranked players (not already in the top 16) from the 2008 Players Championship Order of Merit - decided by the various Player Championship events taking place on the PDC Pro Tour from January 2008 - the cutoff point was the Las Vegas Players Championship just before the 2008 Las Vegas Desert Classic.
Thus, the participants were:
Scores after player's names are three-dart averages (total points scored divided by darts thrown and multiplied by 3)
All games had to be won by 2 clear legs (e.g. in Rd 1 there could not be a 10-9 scoreline it had to be 11-9 or 10-8)
Evening Session
Afternoon Session
Evening Session
Afternoon Session
Evening Session
Round 2
Afternoon Session
Evening Session
Afternoon Session
Evening Session
Taylor was reduced to tears upon winning the second most prestigious title in the PDC for the ninth time. He could not speak to interviewers and simply stood on the stage with a tearful look in his eyes. Later on, Taylor explained that he was overwhelmed by all of the support that he'd received, he also explained how he once thought he was never going to win the title ever again.
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