The World Grand Prix has always stood a little apart from the rest of the PDC darts calendar. The double-in, double-out format demands a different kind of steel – no free starts, no soft openings, every leg a potential trap. The Grand Prix, as it’s often shortened, has produced its share of surprise champions and fairy tale first major runs. It has also produced a peculiar and slightly cruel record that no other ranking major can match.
Five players have reached the final twice and never lifted the trophy: Shayne Burgess, John Part, Terry Jenkins, Raymond van Barneveld and Dave Chisnall. Four of those near-misses came back-to-back. That is an extraordinary concentration of heartbreak for a single event.
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Burgess was first. The Bulldog lost consecutive finals to Phil Taylor in 1999 and 2000, both by the same emphatic 6-1 scoreline. John Part followed almost immediately, falling to Taylor in 2002 and again in 2003.
Then came Terry Jenkins, twice a finalist in successive years (2006 and 2007) and twice beaten – first by Taylor, then by a rising James Wade. Raymond van Barneveld completed the run of consecutive double runners-up, losing the 2008 and 2009 finals to Taylor.
Finally, Dave Chisnall joined the club with non-consecutive defeats in 2013 and 2019.
Four pairs of successive final losses. Five men who got to the brink twice and never crossed it. No other current PDC ranking major has anything to match that.
The World Matchplay comes closest. Dennis Priestley remains the ultimate nearly man of Blackpool with three runner-up finishes and no title. Alan Warriner, John Part and Terry Jenkins each finished second twice without winning. Yet even there the consecutive pattern is less stark and the overall list shorter.
At the UK Open, multiple pure never-winners with two finals are rarer still. The European Championship and Players Championship Finals have produced the odd two-time runner-up who never claimed the crown – Adrian Lewis and Mervyn King spring to mind at the PCF – but nothing approaching the Grand Prix’s five-strong list or its four back-to-back pairs.
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Part of the explanation lies in the combination of era and unique demands of the format. Double-in forces players to start cleanly under pressure; any hesitation is punished immediately. In the Taylor era that pressure was magnified. The Power’s dominance at the event – 11 titles – meant that simply reaching the final was an achievement, and beating him in one was almost impossible.
So a player in good enough form to reach one final was unlikely to disappear without trace the following season. Add in a little fortune, depending on your view, of not being in The Power’s half of the draw and the recipe for heartache was complete.
Several of those double runners-up were outstanding players who collected major silverware elsewhere. Van Barneveld and Part both won world titles. Jenkins and Chisnall were perennial threats who regularly mixed it with the very best, although both are considered the best players of their time not to collect major silverware. Yet the Grand Prix remained beyond all of them.
There is something almost poetic about it. The tournament that has given so many players their first major breakthrough – See DW’s recent feature on career acceleration – has also left a small, distinguished group permanently one step short. Burgess, Part, Jenkins, Barney and Chizzy form an exclusive and unwanted club.
Four of them suffered the particular sting of consecutive final defeats and only Chizzy has the power in his hands to leave the unwonted establishment, although his first round encounter with Luke Humphries makes it a an even tougher mission.
The World Grand Prix continues to reward those who master its particular demands. It also continues to remind us that getting close for five fine players, was as close as it ever got.
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Images: PDC / Tip Top Pics
