Gary Anderson has withdrawn from this weekend's Swiss Darts Trophy, with his European Championship hopes fading and his Players Championship Finals place hanging by a £1,000 margin. Still ranked tenth in the world, the two-time world champion faces the prospect of missing some of the autumn's biggest tournaments.
Anderson sits 62nd in the Players Championship standings on £29,750, having played 14 of the first 30 events and missed the most recent six. Mario Vandenbogaerde, currently the first player outside the 64 qualification places for Minehead, is just £1,000 behind. His European Championship position is more difficult. With £15,000 on the European Tour Order of Merit, Anderson is outside the top 32 and will collect nothing in Basel. Only the Dutch Darts Championship remains after this weekend.
Speaking on the DartsNews Podcast before his Swiss withdrawal was confirmed, chief content officer Samuel Gill, who spent the World Grand Prix week reporting from Leicester, questioned whether Anderson's increasingly selective schedule signalled a gradual retreat from the circuit. "He's often said that he will just walk into the sunset and won't announce that he's retiring. He will leave the sport behind, and that's it," Gill said. "Sure, he might still have some sort of hunger to play, but it's showing that he's winding down right now." Gill raised the possibility that Anderson might not appear again until the World Championship. German darts expert and podcast co-host Nicolas Gayer felt Minehead remained a realistic target, provided he returned to the floor. "I think he has a good chance there because he's right on the edge, and usually he's good on the floor," Gayer said. "That's the last one where I do see a chance that we maybe could be seeing him again."
Anderson won three Players Championship titles in 2023, added two more in 2024 and ended a decade-long wait for a European Tour title by winning that year's European Darts Grand Prix. In 2025, he collected his 30th Players Championship title and successfully defended his Sindelfingen crown, whitewashing Andrew Gilding 8–0 in the final. "I think the last two or three years have been a really good spell for him again, another phase of his prime, even though he didn't win big stuff. Just playing-wise, he was brilliant," Gayer said. "A lot of that was down to him playing a lot on the floor again, playing on the Euro Tours even, which seemed impossible a few years ago."
Anderson's last Players Championship appearance this season came in July. At last week's World Grand Prix, Niels Zonneveld ended his challenge in the second round with a 3–1 victory. Anderson averaged 84.58, winning the third set before the Dutchman closed out the match without dropping a leg in the fourth. "Especially after a few sets, also at the Grand Prix, you see his arm warming up and the throw getting smoother again," Gayer said. "He's then in the matches, but often, as it was the last couple of years, that's too late already, as we saw against Niels Zonneveld. I think you can see the effect of him not playing much. A bit disappointing this year, but I don't think it will be getting much better in the next couple of weeks."
For Gill, the double-start format also exposed a vulnerability that Anderson's scoring can compensate for elsewhere. "He can still whack in a 105 average quite easily without practising, but a format like the World Grand Prix, which he's never won, of course, is not really a Gary Anderson thing," he said. "He needs that time to hit those doubles, hit the power scoring and get to a position where he has time nowadays."
Anderson reached his eighth PDC World Championship semi-final in January, beating Michael van Gerwen and Justin Hood before losing 6–3 to Gian van Veen. Both players averaged close to 103 in the semi-final. A World Matchplay quarter-final followed in July. Then, on only his third European Tour appearance of the season, Anderson reached the Hungarian Darts Trophy final in August. He beat Krzysztof Ratajski, Stephen Bunting, Van Veen and Nathan Aspinall before losing to Ross Smith, averaging 105.27 against Ratajski and over 100 against Van Veen.
Anderson himself recently dismissed suggestions that his lighter schedule amounted to early retirement. In comments previously, he described family commitments taking priority and accepted responsibility for the qualification difficulties caused by missing events. He has also explained his reluctance to enter the Grand Slam qualifier when he feels his results have not earned him a place, having declined a World Series Finals invitation after not playing on that circuit. "He has reasons why he's not playing, as opposed to just saying, 'I don't really care. I'm going to sit this out,'" Gill said. "If he's got different priorities and doesn't want to slog it out on the floor, all the power to him. He's got the career where he can pick and choose and do what he wants."
Gill suggested that his son's progress in darts could give Anderson fresh motivation to continue, or encourage him to devote more time to supporting him. "He's one at a crossroads for me, and what happens will be interesting, because the fans love to see him as well," Gill added. "Being in that arena when Anderson was coming out this week, he still gets one of the loudest cheers in darts. Darts fans absolutely love him to bits." Podcast host Kieran Wood compared Anderson's increasingly occasional appearances to those of a wrestling great: "Anderson is a bit like The Undertaker in the early 2010s: a special attraction. Roll him out for WrestleMania." Gill added: "It's a shame if he doesn't bother playing until the Worlds, but if anybody can do it one time a year, it's Gary Anderson."
The next Players Championship events take place in Den Bosch on October 28–29, before the final two in Leicester on November 4–5. Anderson still has four opportunities to secure his return to Minehead. Whether he takes them, or leaves his place in the hands of the players chasing him, is a decision still to come.
