Gary Anderson

SCOTTISH star Anderson joined an elite group of players to win back-to-back World Championship titles with his successes in 2015 and 2016 at Alexandra Palace, marking him down amongst the sport's most successful players.

The winner of both the International Darts League and World Darts Trophy events in 2007, when the cross-code events were staged in the Netherlands, Anderson joined the PDC circuit two years later.

After reaching the 2011 World Championship final, where he lost to Adrian Lewis, Anderson went on to gain revenge over Lewis in the Premier League final as he crowned his debut season with glory at the Wembley Arena.

Anderson was also a finalist in a handful of other events before victory in the 2014 Players Championship Finals sparked a superb run of success.

He went on to win his maiden World Championship title in 2015 by defeating the legendary Phil Taylor 7-6 in an epic final, and picked up his second Premier League title later in the year.

Anderson then landed a nine-dart finish during his World Championship title defence in 2016 before overcoming Lewis to retain the title.

The Scot also picked up his first three World Series of Darts victories with wins in Dubai, Auckland and Tokyo during 2016, but saw Michael van Gerwen deny him in the World Grand Prix final and then at the World Championship, where the Dutchman took his title with a 7-3 victory in the decider.

Van Gerwen also took victory in the 2017 Masters final and Premier League semi-finals, before Anderson retained his Dubai Darts Masters title with victory over his great rival in another big-stage clash.

Anderson continued his World Series success, picking up the Perth Masters title in August 2017 before going on to reach the finals of the Champions League of Darts and World Series Finals, losing out to Mensur Suljovic and van Gerwen respectively.

The Flying Scotsman went down to Taylor in the last eight of the 2018 World Championship before bouncing back to win his first ever UK Open title.

Anderson claimed his sixth World Series of Darts title at the US Darts Masters in July 2018 and two weeks later became World Matchplay champion for the first time, defeating Mensur Suljovic 21-19 in a tie-break to lift the Phil Taylor Trophy at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool.

Two months later the Scot lifted the Champions League of Darts title for the first time with an 11-4 victory over Peter Wright in the final in Brighton.