{"id":222027,"date":"2026-01-01T17:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T17:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/222027\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T17:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T17:39:09","slug":"gary-anderson-and-ryan-searle-show-class-and-surge-into-world-darts-semis-pdc-world-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/222027\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Anderson and Ryan Searle show class and surge into world darts semis | PDC World Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gary Anderson returned to the World Championship semi-finals for the first time in four years after ending Justin Hood\u2019s dream debut run.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old is enjoying a renaissance and is now just two wins away from lifting a third world title, 10 years after his last. If he can do so, he would become the oldest player to lift the PDC world title and join Michael van Gerwen in second place in the all-time list of champions.<\/p>\n

After beating Van Gerwen on Tuesday night<\/a>, Anderson looked every bit a potential champion as he dispatched Hood 5-2. The Scot will now meet Luke Humphries or Gian van Veen<\/a> in Friday\u2019s semi-final, which will be his eighth last-four encounter at Alexandra Palace.<\/p>\n

Hood has been one of the stories of the tournament, reaching the last eight in his first appearance at Ally Pally, but this was a match too far. Still, it has been a remarkable debut and the 32-year-old walks away with \u00a3100,000 in prize money and the cash to fulfil his lifelong ambition of opening a Chinese restaurant.<\/p>\n

Ryan Searle also booked his last-four spot and will likely have a tough encounter as he could meet Luke Littler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Searle had not dropped a set in reaching the last eight and again showed his class in a 5-2 victory over the number five seed, Jonny Clayton. The 38-year-old\u2019s run to the last four is made even more impressive by the fact he has Kjer\u2019s optic neuropathy, an eye condition which means he often cannot see where the dart lands.<\/p>\n

A multiple exposure of Ryan Searle in action on the oche against Jonny Clayton. Photograph: Godfrey Pitt\/Action Plus\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hereditary condition, so I\u2019ve passed it to both, both of my children,\u201d he said. \u201cMy son doesn\u2019t have it as bad as as me, but my daughter has it really bad. When it gets to about six feet, she can see, but after that her vision gets really bad, so she\u2019s registered as visually impaired.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if I can raise a lot of awareness for that and try and find a cure for it, that means a lot to me. It\u2019s only in the last 18 months that I realised what the diagnosis was for my vision. It\u2019s been bad for as long as I can remember, but to have a diagnosis for it is really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no cure for what I\u2019ve got. I\u2019m stuck with it. I wear contact lenses now, just try and take a bit of the blurriness away from my vision. But sometimes on stage, I\u2019m asking the caller what I\u2019ve scored, and sometimes I don\u2019t, and it puts me in a bit of a difficult position.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can inspire people who maybe can\u2019t see as well as others to pick up the game and give it a go, then that means a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gary Anderson returned to the World Championship semi-finals for the first time in four years after ending Justin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-222027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}