Raymond van Barneveld

Raymond van Barneveld (born 20 April 1967) is a Dutch professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events.

Nicknamed "Barney", although originally known as "The Man", he is one of the most successful darts players in history.

Van Barneveld is a five-time World Darts Champion (four-time BDO and one-time PDC), a two-time UK Open Champion and a former winner of the Las Vegas Desert Classic, the Grand Slam of Darts and the Premier League.

He is also a twice-winner of the World Masters and the World Darts Trophy, and a three-time winner of the International Darts League, the Dutch Open and the WDF World Cup Singles event.

Van Barneveld won the PDC World Cup of Darts four times (once with Co Stompé and three times with Michael van Gerwen) and the WDF World Cup Pairs once (with Vincent van der Voort), all whilst representing and captaining the Netherlands.

He also won the PDC World Pairs with Roland Scholten.

Van Barneveld began participating in competitive events around the Netherlands since 1984 when he was 17 years old.

During that year he won his first tournament, which was the Rotterdam Open.

From there onwards, Van Barneveld was considered among his compatriots as a future potential.

In the following years he joined the international darts circuit, achieving further success reaching the semi-finals of the 1987 Belgian Open and reaching the semi-finals in the 1988 Dutch Open.

In September 1990 he participated in the WDF Europe Cup singles where he lost in the quarter-finals to Phil Taylor.

He started to make some progress on the British Darts Organisation circuit in the early 1990s, reaching the quarter-finals of the Belgian Open in September 1990 and the German Open in March 1991.

Van Barneveld's World Championship debut was at the 1991 Embassy World Championship at the Lakeside Country Club.

His debut at the World Championship however was short-lived as he was comfortably beaten 3–0 by Keith Sullivan of Australia.

His first semi-final came at the Swiss Open in June 1991.

He failed to qualify for the World Championship in 1992, but returned to Lakeside in 1993, which would be the last time that a unified World Championship would be staged.

Van Barneveld served notice of his potential when he hit a 170 checkout to go 2 sets to 1 in front against John Lowe during their second-round match, but Lowe eventually won the match 3–2.

Lowe went on to win the 1993 World Championship.

Shortly after the 1993 World Final, the top players in the World Darts Council (WDC, now the PDC) were suspended and later banned from BDO tournaments.

Van Barneveld continued to make progress in the BDO Open events in 1994 after the split.

Despite failing to qualify for the 1994 BDO World Championship, he reached the quarter-finals of both Dutch Open and Berlin Open, the semi-final at the Belgium Open and his first and only final in a major in 1994, at the Finnish Open where he lost to Andy Fordham.

He continued his good run of form into the 1995 World Championship by beating Les Wallace, Dave Askew, Colin Monk and Martin Adams to reach his first World Final.

Van Barneveld's run to the final would eventually come to an end as he was defeated 6–3 by Welshman Richie Burnett.

After second round exits in 1996 and 1997 Championships, Van Barneveld claimed his first world title in the 1998 World Championship in a World Final grudge match meeting against Richie Burnett.

This time Van Barneveld was the victor, edging Burnett 6–5 in a game which is often considered to be one of the greatest finals of all time having reached 5–5 in sets Van Barneveld finally took the title by winning the final set 4–2 in legs on double 8.

He successfully defended the trophy the year later by the same winning margin as the previous year, this time against Ronnie Baxter.

This made him only the second player in the tournament's history to have launched a successful defence of his title; the other being Eric Bristow.

Martin Adams and Glen Durrant would later also achieve this feat.

In November 1999, Van Barneveld, the then 2-time reigning Lakeside World Champion, took on Phil Taylor, the then 7-time World Champion and reigning PDC world champion, at the Wembley Conference Centre.

It was a legs match with a 60-minute clock ticking down to zero, with a short break at around the halfway stage.

Van Barneveld lost the match 21–10.

Van Barneveld exited in the first round of the World Championships in 2000, crashing out to Chris Mason, who averaged 100 and ended Van Barneveld's hopes of a hat-trick of titles, as well as avenging a semi final loss from the previous year.

His victory over Phil Taylor in the 2007 PDC World Championship final, added to his four previous BDO World Championships brought him level with Eric Bristow as a five-time world champion; he is one of only three players in darts history to achieve this.

He is one of the most successful Dutch darts players to date, and has had a significant effect in raising the popularity of darts in the Netherlands.

He is naturally left-handed but throws darts with his right hand.

From January to June 2008, he was the world's number one ranked player.

In November 2018, Van Barneveld announced his intention to retire from darts after the 2020 PDC World Darts Championship.

On 28 March 2019, following a 7–1 defeat to Michael van Gerwen in his final Premier League match, he announced his retirement with immediate effect, but reversed his decision the following day.

He retired again following his first-round exit from the 2020 PDC World Darts Championship.

In February 2021, 14 months after retiring, he regained his professional tour card after qualifying at the PDC's Q-School.