World Darts Championship nine-darters | How many perfect legs have been hit at Ally Pally?

The perfect leg has been achieved on numerous occasions, but those achieved at the World Darts Championship are always extra special.

Here, we look back at the history of nine-dart finishes on the iconic Alexandra Palace stage.

Opening Context

Darts does theatre like few other sports and there is nothing quite like the nine-darter.

The nine-dart leg is darting perfection, winning a single leg of 501 in just nine darts, the minimum number required to achieve the feat.

To do so, a player needs to hit eight high-value trebles and then the winning double (or bullseye). It is precision throwing of the highest order.

And it’s hard enough to do in practice or in the local pub. But to do it at the World Darts Championship, with the pressure, the TV lights, the eyes of the world upon you. Well, that’s a different level of glory again.

The fact that there have been only 16 perfect nine-darters – by 14 different players – thrown among the thousands of legs in over three decades at the World Darts Championship, tells you exactly how tough the achievement is.

The First PDC World Championship Nine-Darter

Dutch superstar Raymond van Barneveld was the first man to produce a magical nine-darter at the PDC World Darts Championship.

The date was Friday, 2nd January, 2009, and Barney was up against compatriot Jelle Klaasen in the quarter-finals when he made darting history.

The five-time world champion hit three treble 20s on his first visit, three more on his second and with the crowd at fever-pitch returned to hit treble 20, treble 19 and double 12 to raise the Ally Pally roof.

It earned Van Barneveld a cool £20,000 reward and served notice that the (near)-impossible was now very definitely possible.

Subsequent Nine-Darters

Since that famous night there have been another 15 with Barney himself hitting the next one, just 12 months later in a win over Brendan Dolan.

Adrian ‘Jackpot’ Lewis is the only other two-time nine-darter, the first of which he achieved in his 2011 final win over Gary Anderson.

Jackpot is one of two men to achieve perfection in a final, the other Michael Smith 12 years later in what has gone down as the greatest leg of darts ever.

That final, in 2023, will always be remembered for the single leg when Smith and his opponent Michael van Gerwen, went dart for dart with the Dutchman missing double 12 for a nine-darter before Smith landed double 12 himself.

Not that Van Gerwen was a stranger to the nine-darter. He landed one himself back in 2013 against James Wade in their semi-final and in the very next leg almost repeated the feat, missing double 12 for what would have been an historic, unprecedented back-to-back nines.

Patterns and Rarity

The fact that there have been only 16 nine-darters nailed in 33 years of the PDC World Darts Championship illustrates what a difficult feat it is.

And that makes what happened at Ally Pally in the 2022 edition all the more remarkable when not one, not two, but three nine-dart legs were produced by, in order, William Borland, Darius Labanauskas and Gerwyn Price.

That there have been seven in the past five Worlds and nine in the previous 27, shows that the improving standard, as well as more matches being played, means that what was once almost unique is definitely becoming less rare.

Cultural and Emotional Impact

Whenever they come along, though, nine-darters have always raised the roof at the venue – and often on the stage as well.

William Borland – when he hit his magical nine nervelessly in the deciding leg of his first-round scrap with Bradley Brooks in 2022 – danced around the stage like a lunatic.

And it affects players in different ways. Consider that of the 16 perfect nine-darters, in nine cases they were hit by the player who would go on to lose that match, begging the question, does the feat have a negative impact?

Closing Perspective

There are more nine-darters hit now than ever before as the standard continues to improve, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of them.
Of all the superb darts thrown, great feats achieved down the years at Ally Pally, nothing gets the crowd on its feet quite like a nine-darter. And nothing ever will.

PDC World Darts Championship Nine-Darters