Nine-dart finish: Could lightning strike twice at Ally Pally?

Perfection – every sportsperson strives to achieve it.

In darts, the best thing any player can do is hit a nine-dart finish, something which is becoming commonplace in the sport nowadays.

This year at the Ladbrokes World Darts Championship, the latest player to achieve this outstanding feat was Dean Winstanley in his second-round match against Vincent van der Voort. Although the gritty Yorkshireman lost, he’s guaranteed at least a share of £15,000 for it.

Today, there are six third-round games in play involving 12 of the world’s best players, and the chances of someone else taking a share of Winstanley’s special prize are pretty good.

Seven of the players toeing the oche have hit nine-darters on TV before, two of them (Raymond van Barneveld and Adrian Lewis) in the World Championship.

As the standard of play improves all the time, more players hit them, but odds of 12-1 on there for one being hit in today’s afternoon session suggest that they’re still relatively rare.

In the match between Van Barneveld and Gary Anderson, who hit one at the UK Open back in June, odds of 28-1 seem tempting.

Everyone loves a nine-darter, no matter how they’re hit. There are over 3,000 ways to hit one using different combinations, but each of them are equally impressive.

There’s no knowing if another one will be hit for the remainder of this year’s tournament, but given the unpredictable nature of darts, someone could well follow in Winstanley’s footsteps.

Please Note: All Odds and Markets are correct at the time of publishing

Relive Winstanley’s nine-dart finish here…