Gary Anderson is motivated for the World Darts Championship at the best of times but even more so when he hears people doubting whether he could win another world title.
Anderson is a two-time world champion, picking up the trophy back-to-back in 2015 and 2016.
It makes him the last player to have won the worlds twice in a row now 10 years ago, with Luke Littler chasing that piece of history this time around.
Anderson has not made the final since 2021 when he lost to Gerwyn Price but the ‘Flying Scotsman’ believes he has a third World Darts Championship win in him.
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Take a look at how Phil Taylor, Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson, Luke Humphries and Luke Littler joined the Triple Crown club by winning the World Championship, World Matchplay and Premier League.
While unable to contribute as much of his time to darts, the 54-year-old has still been finding some brilliant form, winning on the ProTour and European Tour in 2025, with his sights now firmly set on Ally Pally.
There are a lot of motivating factors that keep Anderson in darts but for chasing that third illustrious worlds title that would put him alongside Phil Taylor and Michael van Gerwen as three-time winners, he is happy for people to doubt him as it only spurs him on.
“Oh, it would. Especially, I haven’t upset so many people,” Anderson said.
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Highlights of Stephen Bunting against Gary Anderson at the World Matchplay.
“I mean, a million pounds, fantastic. You never would have thought it was going to be that and Barry [Hearn] is good at what he does.
“He loves his darts, and he’s pushed it, and he’s pushed it, and he’s pushed it. And it’s now probably the biggest game on the planet so it is good.
“But, yeah, it would be nice to win one more title.
“Usually I’m quite happy. A couple of weeks back, I was quite happy to go you know what? I’ve done my job on that.
“Then people started talking, ‘oh, he’s done, he’s this, he’ll never do it’ and that fires me back up, and I can’t stop playing. I keep carrying on.
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Watch why the 2018 final of the Grand Slam of Darts is considered to be one of the most controversial matches ever as Gerwyn Price and Gary Anderson battled it out for the title.
“I think if everyone was nice and said ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ I probably would just drift away and stop playing.
“But you always get somebody that says that ‘he’s past it and that’ and I’m like no I’m not.
“I don’t put as much time into it but I’m still managing to play with the top players with the amount that I’ve played darts.
“I know that I do well for where my game is, so I just plug on now, don’t I? Just plug on.”
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Price wastes two more match darts – taking the total to 11 – only for Anderson to squander three more set darts! Price comes back to find D5 and secure the Sid Waddell Trophy.
As someone who has been around the game for a long time, Anderson has seen a rapid change in the sport.
Not even he could have predicted he would be competed for a top £1m prize for the winner of the World Darts Championship.
“I know the talk is about changing it but when you drive up that hill and you see Ally Pally sitting up there in the hill, that’s what gets your juices flowing. That’s what it’s all about,” he added.
“The whole year doesn’t really matter. It’s all about December, the World Championships.
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Adrian Lewis and Gary Anderson met in the final of the 2011 World Darts Championship in which ‘Jackpot’ threw a nine-darter in the opening exchanges. Is this the greatest set of darts ever?
“The whole year, if you’re playing bad, it doesn’t matter. You have still got that big one. If you can’t get yourself up for that, then you shouldn’t be playing the game.
“Even if you go back five years, what we were getting paid, we thought we would never be going to Australia, Dubai, China, Japan, everywhere playing darts.
“We’ve seen the world. I have done it all and travelling’s getting a bit hard for me, but with playing darts, I’ve seen the world.
“So, by playing a game that I love playing, I have got to see parts of the world that I probably would never have seen anyway so it has been great.”
Who will win the Paddy Power World Darts Championship? Watch every match exclusively live from December 11 to January 3 on Sky Sports’ dedicated darts channel (Sky channel 407 from December 10). Stream darts and more top sport with NOW.