Simon Whitlock quarter-finals. He then beat Brian Woods to reach the final, where he lost to the number one seed Mark Webster 7–5. He was the first Australian to reach the final since Tony David won the tournament in 2002. Whitlock entered the 2009 BDO World Darts Championship as the number 12 seed and reached the second round by beating Mark Barilli, but lost to Darryl Fitton. After many weeks of speculation, Whitlock returned to the PDC on 19 March 2009. He began playing in the AGP circuit where he won eight tournaments. He qualified for the Las Vegas Desert Classic but
Split in darts two years later. Three time BDO women's champion Anastasia Dobromyslova moved to the PDC in 2008 and moved back in 2011. Simon Whitlock moved to the BDO from the PDC, before subsequently switching back again. There is no definitive World Champion in the game, and players from the rival organisations rarely face each other, except in the Grand Slam of Darts, to which the top BDO players are invited. 16 times world champion (2 BDO, 14 PDC) Phil Taylor has twice defeated the reigning BDO champion in an official challenge match: Raymond van Barneveld in 1999 and Andy Fordham in