After a second round loss to Ricardo Pietreczko in the 2025 Players Championship Finals yesterday, Gary Anderson has now failed to make it to the last four of a PDC major tournament for the first time since 2013.
Anderson is still a top 16 ranked player in darts (14th at the time of writing).
A quarter-final finish at the 2025 World Grand Prix was his best run in a major tournament this year, though he’s still been performing on the ProTour.
A title at Players Championship 7 and a European Tour title at the 2025 European Darts Grand Prix means that the two-time world champion is still winning titles in darts.
The Scotsman has admitted though that he doesn’t have time to practice in order to take the big competitions as seriously as he should:
🗣️"Darts is down the ladders and it's as simple as that. If I need to get back there, I need to put 100 % in. At this moment I've not got 100%"
— Online Darts (@OfficialOLDarts) November 21, 2025
🎤 @GaryAnderson180 cast huge doubt over getting back to his best
Listen in full now 🎥 👉🏻 https://t.co/oky0q693fi pic.twitter.com/xStzBJdxPW
While he’s been open about his current form and inability to practice or dedicate as much time to darts as he feels he should, Anderson also admitted that not taking darts seriously has been an issue for the majority of his career.
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Gary Anderson Admits He Could Have Taken Darts More Seriously
As one of only a few players to win multiple world titles back-to-back, Anderson is comfortable in most people’s top 10 all-time list.
He has one of the smoothest, most effortless looking throws in darts and when on top form, he was a joy to watch.
You’d assume that to reach that level he would spend countless hours on the practice board, other greats like Phil Taylor even admitted to bringing a dartboard on holiday to practice!
In the same post match interview from earlier though, Anderson admits that one of his regrets in darts is that he didn’t really take it seriously.
When asked if his was happy with how he approached his career, Anderson responded:
“I should have stuck to snooker, it was a lot easier…
“No, I’d have liked to have put more time into it, it’s always been a jolly for me.
“Darts has always been a hobby.
“I don’t care what anyone says, I really don’t practice and they say you do practice.
“I’ve told you this before, come and live with me for 6 months, quite happily stay with me and video every second of my life and I’ll prove you all wrong.
Anderson isn’t the only veteran player to say he didn’t take darts as seriously as he should.
Adrian Lewis revealed a few months ago that he should have won more in darts but didn’t have the right ‘mindset’ due to complacency.
With the popularity and money coming into darts now though, the sport is being taken MUCH more seriously by the next generation of players.
£1 million in prize money to the winner of the 2026 World Championship is something many older players are saying they never thought they’d see in darts and the professionalism from players is rising to match this.
Darts commentators say Taylor was ahead of his time when it came to his dedication to the sport and Anderson saying he took it as a hobby (despite winning two world championships) definitely gives that statement more credibility looking back.
You wonder what sort of levels Anderson could have reached if he didn’t treat darts as a ‘jolly’ but with 21 PDC major finals, 8 major titles and multi-millions earned in prize money, he didn’t have too bad of a career for a hobby player…
See his full interview provided by Online Darts below:
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