The 2018 CoralUK Open was a darts tournament staged by the Professional Darts Corporation. It was the sixteenth year of the tournament where, following numerous regional qualifying heats throughout Britain, players competed in a single elimination tournament to be crowned champion. The tournament was held for the fifth time at the Butlin's Resort in Minehead, England, between 2–4 March 2018, and has the nickname, "the FA Cup of darts" as a random draw was staged after each round until the final.
Gary Anderson became the UK Open champion for the first time, defeating Corey Cadby (who was making his debut in the event) 11–7 in the final.
Michael van Gerwen's defeat to Jeffrey de Zwaan in the third round was the first time van Gerwen had lost a live match on ITV since the 2014 Players Championship Finals. Van Gerwen was unbeaten for 77 live matches (including the two live World Series events) on the channel during that period.
The tournament was severely affected by the extreme weather conditions caused by Storm Emma which had forced the complete cancellation of round five of the 2018 Premier League Darts that had been due to be held in Exeter the evening before the tournament started. Eleven players who were due to play in the first, second and third rounds withdrew from the competition, and on 2 March, the unprecedented decision was taken by Butlin's to not allow any fans apart from the players relatives, guests and friends into the venue, resulting in the whole tournament being played behind closed doors.
The tournament was still televised live on ITV4, but the Butlin's Skyline Pavilion Arena was unable to be used for the allocated Main Stage TV matches due to heavy snow and ice, so these matches were reallocated to the secondary Red's Bar stage.[2]
Format and qualifiers
UK Open qualifiers
There were six qualifying events staged in February 2018 to determine the UK Open Order of Merit Table.[3] The tournament winners were:
The tournament featured 128 players. The results of the six qualifiers shown above were collated into the UK Open Order Of Merit. The top 32 players in the Order of Merit received byes into the third round of the UK Open. Players ranked 33–64 received byes to the second round, while Players ranked 65–96 entered the main tournament in the first round. A further 32 players qualified via regional qualifying tournaments.
Top 32 in Order of Merit (receiving byes into third round)
* Lerchbacher was the only third-round qualifier to withdraw from the tournament due to the weather conditions, so Hughes received a bye to the fourth round.