World Championship Men

The 2007 Lakeside World Darts Championship was the 30th Championship and was held between January 6–14, 2007.

The organisers, the British Darts Organisation announced they had given the tournament a new stage set and player walk-on area. They also removed the markers (the two officials who manually calculate player scores) from the stage. They were replaced from this tournament with on-stage plasma television screens. The only official on-stage was the referee/caller. 

Last year's beaten finalist, Raymond van Barneveld announced shortly after that defeat that he would be switching to the Professional Darts Corporation and played in their World Championship instead, winning an epic final for his fifth world title overall. This was the first time that a finalist from one event has played in the other World Championship the following year. 

Jelle Klaasen was defeated in the first round on the defence of his title. His world ranking was 19 at the time of the draw - so he missed out on being seeded and lost in straight sets to number 16 seed and fellow countryman Co Stompé in the first round. It was the sixth time that a champion failed to win his opening match on the defence of the title. Stompé's victory was his first at Lakeside since 2002 - having lost in the first round at the last five attempts.

Andy Fordham was set to play Australia’s Simon Whitlock in the first round but on the evening his match was due he collapsed in the players room and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Fordham hasn’t competed in a World Championship since. It was the first time a player had withdrawn from a match since the 1979 Championship when Alan Evans pulled out of the third-place play-off, also due to ill-health. The bookmaker's pre-tournament favourite for the title, Michael van Gerwen lost to Gary Robson. The 17 year-old World Masters champion was 9/4 favourite for the title, but didn’t get past the first round.

Martin Adams was the number one seed and won his first world title, despite being subjected to the greatest comeback in darts history by opponent Phill Nixon in the final. Adams had led 6-0 in the best-of-13 sets match, but Nixon levelled at 6-6 before Adams finally won the deciding set. Adams played a superb World Championship in which he beat Tony O’Shea, Co Stompé, Ted Hankey and Mervyn King on his way to the final. Phill Nixon would die of cancer in 2013