The 2021

Cazoo Cazoo is a British online car retailer based in London, England which was founded in 2018 by Alex Chesterman. History Cazoo was founded in 2018 by British internet entrepreneur Alex Chesterman. It launched an online marketplace for used cars in ...

Grand Slam of Darts The Grand Slam of Darts is a darts tournament organised by the Professional Darts Corporation and is known as the Cazoo Grand Slam of Darts for sponsorship purposes. The PDC also invited the best performing players from its rival, the British Dart ...

was the fifteenth staging of the

, organised by the

Professional Darts Corporation The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) is a professional darts organisation in the United Kingdom, established in 1992 when a group of leading players split from the British Darts Organisation (BDO) to form what was initially called the World ...

. The event returned to the Aldersley Leisure Village,

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunian ...

between 13–21 November 2021, after being held behind closed doors at the

Ricoh Arena The Coventry Building Society Arena (often shortened to the CBS Arena or just simply Coventry Arena, and formerly known as the Ricoh Arena) is a complex in Coventry, England. It includes a 32,609-seater stadium which is currently home to footb ...

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

in 2020.

José de Sousa José Augusto Oliveira de Sousa (born 12 February 1974) is a Portuguese professional darts player. He is based in Tarragona and represented Spain at the 2011 WDF World Cup, but played for the Portuguese team afterwards at the PDC. He won his ...

was the defending champion, after defeating

James Wade James Martin Wade (born 6 April 1983) is an English professional darts player, currently playing in the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). He became the youngest player to win a major PDC title, when he won the 2007 World Matchplay at the ...

16–12 in the 2020 final, but he was eliminated in the second round, losing 10–9 to Peter Wright.

Gerwyn Price Gerwyn Stephen Price (born 7 March 1985) is a Welsh professional darts player and former professional rugby union and rugby league player. Nicknamed "The Iceman", he competes in events of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), where he is cu ...

won the tournament for the third time in four years, defeating Peter Wright 16–8 in the final. Due to the dissolution of the

British Darts Organisation The British Darts Organisation (BDO) was a darts organisation founded on 7 January 1973 by Olly Croft. Made up of 66 member counties, it oversaw professional, semi-professional and amateur darts competitions in Britain. The BDO was a founder ...

in 2020, there was no BDO/WDF representation for the first time in the event's history. During her 5–0 victory over

Mike De Decker Mike De Decker (born 15 December 1995) is a professional Belgian darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. Career He won two PDC Development Tour events in 2015, followed by another one in 2016. He also won a PDC ...

in the group stage,

Fallon Sherrock Fallon Sherrock (born 2 July 1994) is an English professional darts player who plays in World Darts Federation (WDF) and Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. Born in Milton Keynes, Sherrock reached the final of the 2015 BDO Women's Worl ...

averaged 101.55, setting a new record for the highest televised average by a woman. She then went on to become the first woman to advance to the knockout stage, where she defeated

Mensur Suljović Mensur Suljović (Serbian Cyrillic: Менсур Суљовић; born 5 March 1972) is an Austrian professional darts player. He plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events, having previously played in the British Darts Organisation (BD ...

in the second round, before losing to Peter Wright in the quarterfinals.

Michael van Gerwen Michael van Gerwen (; born 25 April 1989) is a Dutch professional darts player. He is currently ranked number 3 in the world, having been number 1 from 2014 to 2021. He is also a three-time PDC World Champion, having won the title in 2014, 2 ...

set a new Grand Slam record average of 115.19 during his 5–2 victory over Joe Cullen, surpassing the record set by

Dimitri Van den Bergh Dimitri Van den Bergh (born 8 July 1994) is a Belgian professional darts player who currently competes in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. He is a two-time World Youth Champion and the 2020 World Matchplay champion, after beating Gar ...

the previous year.

Prize money

The prize fund for the Grand Slam was the same as 2019 and 2020, with the winner receiving £125,000.

Qualifying

The qualification criteria changed again for the 2021 tournament, as there were no Summer, Autumn or Winter Series events, as well as no Home Tour, and no events organized by the BDO, which dissolved in 2020. The addition of qualifiers from the PDC Challenge and Development Tours replaced BDO representation. On 11 November, it was announced that

had tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, ruling him out of the tournament. He was replaced by

Chris Dobey Chris Dobey (born 31 May 1990) is an English professional darts player currently playing in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events. Career His first major TV appearance came in the 2015 UK Open where he lost 5–1 in the first round to N ...

, who was next on the list of qualifying criteria. The qualifiers were:

Qualifying Tournaments

Since the list of qualifiers from the main tournaments produced fewer than the required number of 16 players, the field was to be filled from the reserve lists. The first list consisted of the winners from 2021 European Tour events, with the winners ordered based on Order of Merit position at the cut-off date. However, Gerwyn Price, who had already qualified, won both European Tour events, and thus this list produced no new competitors. Since there were still fewer than 16 qualifiers after European Tour champions were included, the players with the most

2021 Players Championship The 2021 Players Championship was the 48th Players Championship and was played March 11–14 at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. It was the fortieth edition held at the Stadium Course; the 2020 tournament was canceled after the first ...

titles were added. Order of Merit position served as a tiebreaker.

PDC Qualifying Event

A further eight places in the Grand Slam of Darts were filled by winners of a qualifying event on 5 November. These are the qualifiers: * * * * * * * *

Additional qualifiers

The winners of these tournaments and tours also qualified for the tournament, in place of BDO/WDF representation.

Draw

The draw was made on 5 November, with the players split into 4 pools based on their current world ranking.

Pools

One player from each non-seeded pool was drawn into a group with a seeded player. The players are listed with their

world ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...

at the time of the draw.

Group stage

''All group matches are best of nine legs''
''After three games, the top two in each group qualify for the knock-out stage'' NB: P = Played; W = Won; L = Lost; LF = Legs for; LA = Legs against; = Plus/minus record, in relation to legs; Pts = Points; Status = Qualified to knockout stage

Group A

13 November 14 November 15 November

Group B

13 November 14 November 15 November

Group C

13 November 14 November 15 November

Group D

13 November 14 November 15 November

Group E

13 November 14 November 16 November

Group F

13 November 14 November 16 November

Group G

13 November 14 November 16 November

Group H

13 November 14 November 16 November

Knockout stage

References

{{2021 in PDC darts

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

Grand Slam Grand Slam most often refers to: * Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to: Games and sports * Grand slam, winning category te ...