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Rob Cross and Phil Taylor in the 2018 World Championship final

Sliding Doors Moments in Darts Part 1: The most crucial rest day in darting history as Rob Cross beat Phil Taylor in the 2018 World Championship final

By Paul Nicholson

Darts

Sun September 15, 2024 · 2M ago

Paul Nicholson begins his 'Sliding Doors Moments in Darts' series with the most important 'rest day' in history ahead of the 2018 World Championship final...

Phil Taylor unfittingly bid farewell to professional darts as a runner-up after being completely blown away in the climax of an unforgettable 2018 World Championship.

The pundits, fans and bookies were largely expecting a fairytale finale to The Power's legendary career against the debutant Rob Cross on New Year's Day, 2018, but instead it was Voltage who lit up Ally Pally with a performance for the ages to run out a 7-2 winner.

His average of 107.67 was the third highest in history for a World Championship final - behind Taylor's 110.94 and Michael van Gerwen's 107.79 - and when you consider he won 21 of the 31 legs played, you're probably wondering why I think a seemingly inconsequential 'rest day' altered the course of history.

PHIL TAYLOR'S LAST EVER MATCH! | Cross v Taylor | 2018 World Championship

Generally speaking the semi-finals are both played the day before the final.

For when there has been a rest day, it falls on New Year's Eve, with the crescendo being played on New Year's Day. On the surface, nobody gets an advantage.

But on this particular occasion, it played into the debutant's hands.

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Semi-final day

During the early evening part of the semi-final session, Phil Taylor destroyed surprise semi-finalist Jamie Lewis 6-1 with an average almost touching 100 and he could now focus his preparations for his 21st World Championship final and his 19th in the PDC.

Lewis was so proud just to have reached the semi-finals that he asked the PDC if he could keep the board. He then got Phil to sign it and the autograph read: “Phil Taylor, 16.5.”

He knew he was agonisingly close to number 17 but at this point he was probably anticipating a battle with his old rival Michael van Gerwen.

What followed during the evening session was one of the most enthralling matches ever witnessed in darts history – let alone World Championship history.

Best World Championship Match Ever?! 2018 World Championships - Michael van Gerwen vs. Rob Cross

Cross’ iconic 6-5 victory – which went to a sudden-death leg after multiple missed match darts by both players – actually finished so late it went into New Year’s Eve and many fans missed their trains home.

The queues for the taxis were surreal and there were still people outside the venue about 90 minutes later waiting for their ride home.

I’d been covering the games that night for Talksport 2 and I said on air that Cross would be so relieved he’d got the next day off after expending all that mental and physical energy.

I’m convinced that by having that day off that he had enough time to recharge his batteries enough to be in full form for that final.

What if there’d been no rest day?

If it had been like most years with no rest, Phil would have been completely fine.

He’d raced through the tournament for the loss of just five sets and 43 legs across five matches whilst his tournament average was around 100.

Taylor, who’d cruised to a 16th World Matchplay title earlier in the season had shown no signs of buckling under the weight of pressure in his farewell tournament.

Phil walked to the oche on finals day looking like he was ready to have some fun – and he did play very well. He averaged 102, hit 12 maximums in the 31 legs played hit 45% of his doubles. He was fractions away from his first World Championship nine-darter, too.

The reason he lost was purely down to an extraordinary performance from his opponent, who was now totally fresh, prepared and full of confidence.

Had there not been a rest day, he’d have been mentally shot and goodness knows how much sleep he’d have managed to get.

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At this stage of his career, Voltage had very little experience of long format darts at the highest level, let alone in consecutive days.

The day before the chaos against MVG, he’d already been taken to the wire by Dimitri Van den Bergh in the quarter-finals so he really would have been running on fumes.

That's 20 sets of darts in two days – not to mention all the preparation, practice and media duties that would have been going on. For a rookie, that’s a lot to ask.

What some fans might not know is that players have to arrive at the venue for the World Championship final around five hours before it starts. They have interviews and ‘B-roll’ shots to do for the media – particularly for Sky Sports – and then they’ll want to have a nice three hour window to prepare in the way they want.

If Cross had to do all that after getting into bed at roughly 2am the previous night, I very much doubt he’d have been able to produce the kind of performance that ended Taylor’s career so ruthlessly.

As inconsequential as it seems on the surface, that day off on New Year's Eve is one of the most important reasons why he was able to do what he did in the final.

That said, who’s to say he wouldn’t have won 7-6 in a much closer match? We’ll never know.

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So what would have happened next?

Firstly, Phil Taylor gets a truly iconic send off with incredible fanfare and media attention.

Rob would have left the stage as a gallant runner-up before all the limelight descends on Taylor and his photos with the Sid Waddell Trophy one last time, not to mention the celebratory chanting of his name from a packed crowd.

Would this possibly have prompted a retirement U-turn?

I don’t think so. He’d have stuck to his guns and, as a result, the Premier League would have been without a world champion for the first time.

It would have been a real headache for the PDC unless he’d decided to treat it as a world champion’s farewell tour.

Overall, the effect of Phil winning the final would have been felt for quite some time and the iconography of it would be totally different than the special ‘Roy of the Rovers’ storyline that we had instead.

So what about the future for Cross had he not beaten Taylor?

I've thought about this a lot and I don't think much would have changed – and certainly not for the worse.

Becoming world champion was a huge surprise so early in his career and reaching the final would have remained an incredible achievement for him to build on.

Defeat wouldn’t have crushed him. If anything, he’d have had less pressure on his shoulders to build on his success and I have no doubt other major titles would have come his way over the next six years – just like what has happened in reality.

I think that tournament was just the precursor to what we were going to see – and he didn’t ‘need’ the world title to fulfil his potential.

However, the manner of his performance and victory against Taylor set a ridiculously high bar for himself and while he’s a much better all-round player today than the 2017/2018 Rob Cross, it’ll be hard to ever reach those iconic levels.