Stats Analysis: The best double hitters on every different segment

Gerwyn Price (Kieran Cleeves/PDC)

In his latest column, PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf analyses the leading performers on every doubling segment, and how this illustrates the current strength in depth at the sport's top level.

Best double hitters

Such was Phil Taylor's dominance of darts' World Championship that 'The Power' won 10 matches at the Circus Tavern and Alexandra Palace for every one that he lost.

Taylor still holds four of the ten highest match averages in the World Championship's history - eight years after his last participation in the event.

If no player was ever able to rival such dominance in darts' biggest event, it is because Taylor's known career figures of 43.5% accuracy on finishing doubles - over more than 7000 attempts in total - was beyond the capabilities of most of his opponents.

In his 25th and final appearance in a PDC World Championship, Taylor was more than 50% accurate when attempting doubles.

After several years of calculating doubling statistics across the PDC, many players have attempted as many doubles, but none have been so proficient in doing so.

Thirty-four players have held a Tour Card for an uninterrupted period from 2018 to the present, encompassing every season since Taylor's retirement.

Between them they have attempted 170,000 doubles in stage and streamed events and hit 39.3% of their targets.

From this large sample we can more clearly determine which players are the best finishers on any individual double or in total, not in one event or on form over a few months, but categorically, as a function of their own unique talents and abilities.

The unsurprising leader on tops is Gerwyn Price, more than 1% clear of the #2 player, Ryan Searle.

The 2021 World Champion's rise to fame and fortune was assisted in no small part by his dependence on this single double - nearly 40% of all his double attempts target the highest segment on the board.

And with 44.2% accuracy, Price has finished 1,874 stage or streamed legs on this double since January 2018, more than 500 successful hits more than any other player on any double. 

It is harder for players to incorporate D16 as fully into their doubles strategy as double 20; after all, when faced with a 60 checkout, a player has no other realistic option than tops.

However, double 16 is more forgiving, and apparently easier for professionals to hit.

With that in mind, no player has been more successful on double 16 than Ryan Joyce: 30% of his successful double hits score 32 points, and of his nearly 500 attempts, 48% found their target.

Joyce is also an exceptional double eight hitter - one could imagine 'Relentless' as an even more formidable player if double-start were more common on the PDC calendar.

Players in the PDC are, on average, about 2% more accurate on double 16, and players like Joyce who attempt that double frequently have a small advantage in every leg in which they do.

Players tend to struggle most with the smallest doubles, with which there is the greatest risk of a bust.

Yet for Ross Smith in the madhouse, it's no problem; he is not only more accurate on double one than any other player, he has missed to the inside of the double (busting automatically) only five times in 35 attempts.

The highest individual accuracy percentage of any player on any double is recorded by Chris Dobey on double three, historically the most difficult non-bull double to hit because of its extremely low position on the board.

Yet Dobey thrives 'down under', not only hitting 72% of this rarely attempted double but hitting more than 40% of his double 19s and 17s as well.

No player has met with more success over the past seven years in the PDC than Michael van Gerwen, yet he earns top accuracy honours on none of the most common doubles.

Though he has attempted it only 18 times on stage since his great rival's retirement, MvG is best on the segment used to win only one in 417 legs, double 17.

It is a double more often arrived at by mistake than by any conscious strategy, but a nine-darter finished on double 17 is possible if a bullseye is also hit, and MvG, with two dozen conventional nine-darters to his name, would be just the man to do it in such style.

If you were to ask any of the 34 players continuously present on the PDC Pro Tour for the past seven years to throw a dart at double to save your life, without knowing which double it would be, neither Peter Wright, Gary Anderson nor Michael van Gerwen would be your best choice.

You would do best to select James Wade, who leads the 34 in accuracy overall (42.4%) and on three individual doubles (bullseye, double 12 and, unsurprisingly, double 10.)

Wade's track record is especially impressive because of the way he misses doubles. No other player misses to the inside less often on any of doubles 20, 10 or five than Wade does on double 10.

Wade's finishing has made him as dangerous a player in 2024 as he was in 2014 or in 2004; if he has not yet got his hands on the Sid Waddell Trophy, it is only because his less-potent scoring has just put the winning double out of reach. 

Of the 21 doubles on the board, there are 17 different accuracy leaders, none of which are World Champions Gary Anderson, Peter Wright, Rob Cross or Michael Smith.

Leading the PDC in accuracy on double 11 might be a novelty, but it clearly does the player boasting of this achievement no good in winning titles.

It does, however, further illustrate the power vacuum left behind with Taylor's retirement, and the colossal difficulty of any other player ever achieving a similar level of dominance.

Follow Christopher on Twitter @ochepedia