Glen Durrant who was the defending men's champion, successfully retained his title, beating Mark McGeeney 7–6 in the final after the match went to a tie break. Durrant became the fifth player to defend a world title following his first win, after Eric Bristow, Raymond van Barneveld, Adrian Lewis and Gary Anderson. McGeeney became the second man, following Mike Gregory in 1992, to lose a world final having had darts at double to win.
Durrant recorded the tournament's first 100+ match average since 2014 in his quarter-final victory over Jim Williams.
All four men's quarter-finals went to a deciding set, the first time this had happened since the format was changed so that the quarters were played to best of nine sets. The previous year this happened was 1991, when the quarter-finals were best of seven sets.
^James Hurrell withdrew from the tournament due to ill health. He was replaced in the draw by the next highest ranked player not qualified, which was Richie Edwards of Wales.[2]
^Krzysztof Ratajski, who qualified for the preliminary round as the 2017 World Masters champion, declined his invitation in order to attempt to qualify for the rival 2018 PDC World Darts Championship. Gary Robson, the highest ranked non-qualifier, was invited as a replacement.[3]
For the fourth consecutive year, a youth final was played on the Lakeside stage during the Championships. In September 2017, the Youth tournament was played down to the final two. The final took place on 11 January, and was contested between 17 year old defending champion Justin van Tergouw from the Netherlands and 15 year old Killian Heffernan from Ireland. The format was first to three sets. [38]
This tables shows the number of players by country (men and women) in the World Championship, the total number including the preliminary round. Fifteen countries were represented in the World Championship at men competition and seven at the women. Overall seventeen countries competed at the World Championship.
