The 2004 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship was the 10th anniversary of the PDC version of the

World Darts Championship The World Professional Darts Championship is one of the most important tournaments in the darts calendar. Originally held as an annual event between 1978 and 1993, players then broke off into two separate organisations after a controversial split ...

. The tournament took place between 27 December 2003 and 4 January 2004 at the

Circus Tavern The Circus Tavern is an entertainment venue in Purfleet, Essex, England which hosts functions, cabaret acts and is also a nightclub venue. First opened in 1974, it is most famous as having been a long-time venue of the PDC World Darts Champion ...

Purfleet Purfleet-on-Thames is a town in the Thurrock unitary authority, Essex, England. It is bordered by the A13 road to the north and the River Thames to the south and is within the easternmost part of the M25 motorway but just outside the Greater Lon ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. An extra round was added, with the top 16 seeds given a bye to the third round, bringing the total players at the televised stages to 48.

Ladbrokes Ladbrokes Coral is a British gambling company founded in 1886. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK and International. UK operations are c ...

, who sponsored the event initially for one year in 2003, decided to extend their deal and the prize fund was increased to £256,000. The Dutch television station,

RTL 5 RTL 5 is a Dutch free-to-cable television channel that was launched on 2 October 1993. It mainly broadcasts American films and hit series but also reality shows, comedy, travel, international shows and local productions including '' Expeditie Rob ...

and

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

both extended their deals with the PDC by three years. PDC chairman Barry Hearn announced that the tournament would be shown in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

on pay-per-view. Defending champion and number two seed,

John Part John Part (born June 29, 1966) is a Canadian former professional darts player and current commentator. Nicknamed Darth Maple, he is a three-times World Champion, having won the 1994 BDO World Darts Championship on his world championship debut, a ...

suffered a surprise first-round defeat to

Mark Dudbridge Mark "Flash" Dudbridge (born 11 January 1973) is an English professional darts player. He appeared in the 2005 Premier League Darts after reaching the final of the 2005 PDC World Darts Championship. He also is a former World Master and has rea ...

, his first match of the 2004 campaign. 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 Michael Keith Gregory (20 May 1964 – 19 November 2007) was an English professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s and 1990s, and coached in the 1990s and 2000s. He played for Warrington from 1982 to 1994, and won 20 caps fo ...

in the 1992 BDO final, Taylor was again involved and came out victorious against

Kevin Painter Kevin Painter (born 12 July 1967) is an English retired darts player, known as "The Artist". He is arguably most famous for finishing as the runner-up to Phil Taylor in the 2004 PDC World Championship final, now widely credited as one of the ...

. He came from 4–1 down to win his 11th world title. The two losing semi-finalists came from different ends of darts experience. 56-year-old Bob Anderson, a World Champion 16 years earlier lost to Painter and

Wayne Mardle Wayne Elliot Mardle (born 10 May 1973) is an English former professional darts player who played in events of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) and British Darts Organisation (BDO). He was runner-up in three PDC majors, losing to Phil ...

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.

Seeds

Prize money

New format

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.

Results

Representation from different countries

This table shows the number of players by country in the World Championship, the total number including round 1&2.

External links

Tournament format
{{DEFAULTSORT:2004 Pdc World Darts Championship PDC World Darts Championships PDC World Darts Championship 2004 PDC World Darts Championship 2004 PDC World Darts Championship PDC World Darts Championship PDC World Darts Championship Purfleet Sport in Essex