Gary Anderson has enjoyed a renaissance this season in terms of mind-blowing averages and winning titles on both the Pro Tour and European Tour.
The Flying Scotsman boasts the highest seasonal average out of everyone across all competitions but as we head into this year’s Grand Slam of Darts, he’s still without a major title since 2018.
At the age of 53, his days of contending at the very top may be limited – especially over the longer formats, in which he only managed to reach three major finals over those last six years; the 2018 Grand Slam, the 2020 World Matchplay and the 2021 World Championship.
Apart from a semi-final run at the 2022 Worlds, he’s not seriously challenged in any other major in this time frame and Father Time won’t let him have too many opportunities when there’s so many new emerging stars fighting for honours.
When he faced Gerwyn Price in the 2018 Grand Slam of Darts final, he was hot favourite to finally add this title to his CV. He’d made no secret of his desire to win this tournament that he holds so close to his heart but in one of the most tempestuous and controversial matches in darts history, he suffered a painful defeat that may well have affected him more than most others in his career.
What would have happened had Anderson won?
Some would argue that Anderson would have won that final against Price had it not descended into such a hostile contest.
He’s often been very vocal about how he likes darts played in the right spirit but if anything, when Gary gets motivated and fired up, he tends to reach higher levels.
Although on this occasion the situation may have overtaken him. We mustn’t forget how much Gerwyn Price was underestimated at the time and it probably wasn’t as big a shock result as reported.
The fans had already labelled him as someone who was disrespectful and loud but they forgot that he was also very good and that victory was certainly legitimised with more success in the coming years.
I don’t think its as simple as thinking Anderson would definitely have won had it been played in a more placid environment. After all, several years later Price beat him again in the most placid World Championship of them all during the Covid era with no fans.
However, the defeat hurt him a lot and over the next 14 months or so, he went very quiet compared to what he was doing in previous seasons.
Everyone knows how much he wanted to win that title because it was the Grand Slam of Darts that introduced him to the PDC audiences way back in 2007.
As a BDO representative he reached the semi-finals twice in 2007 and 2008, being narrowly beaten 13-11 by Phil Taylor and 16-14 by Terry Jenkins respectively, while he’s only failed to qualify for this tournament once during his PDC career in 2022. That is outstanding in itself.
He also reached the 2011 final so it’s been a tournament he’s been close to winning multiple times. To have it denied again in that manner will have hurt a lot.
If he’d lifted the trophy in 2018, you’d like to think it wouldn’t have been his last, and he’d then have carried that confidence into the forthcoming majors.
However, on the flip side, had he picked up that Grand Slam and gone on to win another world title or two in the forthcoming years, he may well have felt he’d ‘completed’ his career enough to retire. We can only speculate.
He could have walked away at any point in the last few years had he won everything he’d wanted to.
As it is, he still has ambitions he wants to tick off the list, which is to our benefit too seeing as he’s still going.
Can Anderson still seriously challenge for majors?
Gary looked well on course to end his major drought at the recent European Championship but in the quarter-finals, he suffered a shock 10-5 defeat to eventual winner Ritchie Edhouse.
Anderson did average over 100 in that game so it wasn’t as if he played badly, but he was closed out by someone who was having their perfect storm.
That happens now and again in darts, but it seems to happen more now than ever by a wider range of players.
This is great for us as viewers but the top players simply can’t take anyone lower down the rankings lightly anymore.
They’re all playing more stage events than ever before in front of big crowds, while nobody seems fazed by the TV cameras due to the amount of televised and streamed darts that they are getting more exposed to more regularly.
Gary is playing phenomenal darts and setting new personal bests in terms of averages but this doesn’t guarantee title runs any more. Especially not in the majors.
Gary still wants to be earning money for his family and for his retirement before leaving on his own terms. But he’s probably thinking ‘how good do I have to be to keep contending in that time?’
Ryan Searle has mentioned how much he’s revived himself over the last few years, but he’s the kind of person that can motivate Gary to keep reaching the highest performance levels too.
As much as he tries to play down how much he cares and talks about his joy of other interests like fishing, I think there’s an element of deflecting going on here, which I’m not against with so much media attention on the sport these days.
However, as much as he really wants to pick up a major – especially this one or a world title – if someone came from the future and told him it wasn’t going to happen, he could accept it I’m sure.
I don’t think he’s “desperate” to win things, but if he was to make a list of the tournaments he’d like to win that he hasn’t, the Grand Slam would comfortably top of the list.
How will he fare at this year’s Grand Slam?
I’ve got no doubt that Gary can make it through the group stages, because I think the bursts we’ve seen in short format Players Championship events over the past couple of years have been meteoric.
He’s remarkably never failed to get out of the group stages and will be supremely confident about beating anyone, even Michael van Gerwen.
Whether he can stay competitive in the longer formats of the knockout stages is a tougher question to answer.
It takes a lot of mental strength as well as ability to go far in this tournament, which requires you to win two best-of-31 leg matches on the final day.
These are matches that can last in excess of 90 minutes so it’s no shame to accept that it gets harder as you get older and I’d say that about anyone of his age and experience.
He did push Humphries hard in the quarter-finals last year so we can’t dismiss him purely because of age.
It would be an incredible fairytale if he does manage to finally win it this year and there wouldn’t be many more popular winners than him.
I’ve known Gary a very long time and I’ve had a very checkered relationship with him over the years. But nevertheless, I still really like him, and would appreciate it being a fantastic moment for darts.
And if he did manage it, we’d then have the proof we need to suggest he can go and challenge for a third world title.
