Before this week, only Phil Taylor had won the World Darts Championship and the Betfred World Matchplay in the same calendar year.

Michael van Gerwen and Peter Wright had achieved the feat of holding the Worlds and the Matchplay at the same time, but won the Matchplay en route to the Sid Waddell Trophy in 2016/17 and 2021/22 respectively.

Now, Taylor has company in that feat in the shape of Luke Humphries.

The world number one produced a Tayloresque week at the Winter Gardens, culminating in a dramatic 18-15 win over van Gerwen in the final in Blackpool to lift the Phil Taylor Trophy for the first time.

It caps off a remarkable nine months for Humphries, who’s picked up five TV ranked majors in the last seven events. He’s set to be the world number one now for at least the next 12 months if not longer, and it continues the newest period of dominance in the world of darts.

Humphries shows class in the big moments

In some ways, this victory for the Newbury ace should not be surprised. From the moment he first stepped on stage in Blackpool, he looked the man to beat.

His first round opponent, Germany’s Ricardo Pietreczko, averaged over 100 in the match. Despite this, Humphries dispatched him 10-4, averaging 108.76 in the process.

Stephen Bunting was seen off in the second round 11-7, followed by a former World Matchplay champion in the shape of Dimitri Van den Bergh in a rematch of the UK Open Final from March. Van den Bergh kept it close, but towards the latter stages, Cool Hand powered away for a 16-10 victory.

The semi final against James Wade saw a similar outcome. Again, Wade stayed in the fight for the first half of the game, but Humphries showed his class, making his first World Matchplay final by 17-10.

So to the final against van Gerwen then, as the top two seeds battled it out for the biggest ranking major outside of the Worlds. Humphries came into this having won the last seven games between the pair, and eight of the last nine going back to the 2023 Players Championship Finals final. For van Gerwen, a man who’d been written off before a dart was thrown, this was, in his words, a chance “to teach him a lesson.”

The final started with six breaks of throw, before Humphries put the accelerator down to move 6-3 ahead. The Dutchman though, a three time winner of the Matchplay himself, fought and fought throughout. After coming out of an interval 11-9 down, and Humphries winning the first leg of the next session, MvG reeled off three straight legs himself to level an absorbing contest at 12-12.

A huge moment though came in the next leg. After van Gerwen had mistakenly left 165, he hit 133 to leave double 16. Cool Hand was on 86, and he knew he could not afford to miss. Treble 18 pinged. Double 16 missed on the outside, middle of the bed with the third dart. He let out a huge roar afterwards, and both players knew the importance of that dart going into the final interval.

Humphries then went 16-13 ahead, before van Gerwen produced 160 and 108 finishes in back to back legs to somehow stay in the contest and cut the gap to one. However, once again, two big moments fell the world number one’s way, as it did for MvG when he was at the top. The Dutchman missed four darts at a double in both the 32nd and 33rd leg, allowing Humphries to ping double 10 and then a 100 outshot with two tops to get over the line in a stunning final.

“Luke Humphries comes full circle with World Matchplay win”

If we think back 12 months, Cool Hand had just lost an epic semi final to Jonny Clayton, when it seemed that he would finally get over the line and lift his first TV title.

That was the catalyst for a remarkable run that saw him lift the World Grand Prix, Grand Slam of Darts, Players Championship Finals and of course the World Championship in the space of 87 days at the back end of 2023.

He lost that UK Open Final to Van den Bergh, as well as the Premier League Darts Final to Luke Littler at The O2 in May, but in coming through last night against van Gerwen, Luke Humphries has come full circle with this Betfred World Matchplay win, as he now holds every ranked major TV event that is shown by Sky Sports in the UK. A remarkable feat.

He averaged 102.04 across the week in Blackpool, hitting a ton average in every single game he played. He also hit 42 180s, and over 44% on his doubles. That is outstanding, especially considering the length of the games players have to play from the quarter finals onwards.

Even when he fell behind, which was not often, he never looked in trouble. Whether you were in the crowd, watching on TV, or up there playing him, there was always a knowledge that he would find a five or six leg blitz to take the match away from the other player and put it firmly in his control.

To steal a line from Sky’s Rod Studd, “that’s why he’s the number one!” In this instance, Studd was describing Michael van Gerwen’s 135 skin saver checkout against Raymond van Barneveld in the 2016 Worlds, but he could easily be talking about Humphries, who incidentally became the first world number one to lift the Betfred World Matchplay since The Green Machine in 2016.

After all the talk about how this Betfred World Matchplay could be the most open ever before a dart was thrown, the world number one and two contested the final, with the number one just squeaking home. How it should be.

Darts has never been more competitive than it is right now. Many thought it would be impossible for one player to dominate the sport in this era like Taylor and van Gerwen previously did.

However, Luke Humphries continues to prove that anything is impossible. The worry for the rest of the field though, is that this may not even be his peak.

If it isn’t, good luck everyone else.