BDO Career
Van Barneveld's first World Championship appearance came in 1991 playing in the Embassy World Championship at the Lakeside Country Club, but his first round match ended in a 0-3 defeat to Australian Keith Sullivan.
He started to make some progress on the British Darts Organisation circuit, reaching the quarter-finals of the Belgian Open in September 1990 and the German Open in March 1991. His first semi-final came at the Swiss Open in June 1991.
He failed to qualify for the World Championship in 1992, but made it back to Lakeside in 1993, which would be the last time that a unified World Championship would be staged. Van Barneveld lost in a close match 2-3 to John Lowe, who would go on to win the championship. Shortly after the 1993 World Final, the top players in the game at the time formed the World Darts Council (WDC, now the PDC) and left the BDO.
Van Barneveld continued to make progress in the BDO Open events in 1994 after the split, reaching the quarter-finals at the Dutch Open and Berlin Open, the semi-final at the Belgium Open and his first final, at the Finnish Open where he lost to Andy Fordham.
He continued his good run of form into the 1995 World Championship by putting out Les Wallace, Dave Askew, Colin Monk and Martin Adams to reach his first World Final. But it ended in defeat 3-6 to Welshman Richie Burnett.
After second round defeats in 1996 and 1997, the former postman took his first world title in 1998 by beating Burnett in a repeat of the 1995 final. This match however is often listed amongst the greatest of all-time having reached 5-5 in sets Van Barneveld finally took the title by winning the final set 4-2 in legs on double 8.
He successfully defended the trophy one year later by the same winning margin, this time against Ronnie Baxter of England. This made him only the second player in the tournament's history to have launched a successful defence of his title; the other being Eric Bristow. Martin Adams would later also achieve this feat.
His run of success ended in the first round in 2000, crashing out to Chris Mason, who averaged 100 and ended Van Barneveld's hopes of a hat-trick of titles.
Van Barneveld lost in the quarter-finals in 2001 (4-5 to Ted Hankey) and 2002 (3-5 to Mervyn King) before returning to the final in 2003. He clinched his third world title by beating Ritchie Davies of Wales 6-3.
His 2004 campaign ended in the semi-finals, when Andy Fordham beat him 5-4 in another memorable match.
A fourth title followed in 2005. He never dropped a set in the first three rounds as he beat Gary Anderson, Mike Veitch and Vincent van der Voort. A 5-3 semi-final win over Darryl Fitton and 6-2 triumph over Martin Adams of England in the final brought him that fourth title.
Van Barneveld reached his sixth final in 2006, and was aiming to equal Bristow's record of five BDO world titles. On this occasion however, his hopes were ended by 21 year-old fellow countryman Jelle Klaasen who prevailed 7-5.
He has also won the prestigious Winmau World Masters title twice: once in 2001 when he recorded a win in the final over Jarkko Komula of Finland and again in 2005 when he beat Goran Klemme in the final. Other major darts tournaments that he has won at least twice include The World Darts Trophy and The International Darts League.
Van Barneveld is naturally left handed, but he throws darts with his right hand.
Read more about this topic: Raymond Van Barneveld
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