Robert Cross is an English professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation events, and was the 2018 PDC World Darts Champion, following his victory over Phil Taylor. Cross won the World Championship on his debut, having turned professional just 11 months prior to the event. He is currently ranked No. 4 on the PDC world rankings.
At the 2017 UK Open, Cross reached the fifth round before being knocked out by eventual winner Peter Wright. The following week, he won his first PDC title by defeating Mervyn King 6–5 in the final of the third Players Championship. His first year on the tour continued as he won the 12th event with a 6–5 victory over Ian White, who missed five darts for the title. Cross then beat Peter Wright 6–2 in Players Championship 19 in Dublin and quickly added his 4th Players Championship with a 6–3 win against Adrian Lewis to move into the top 32 for the first time. Cross reached the final of two events in the 2017 PDC European Tour, the German Darts Grand Prix and the European Darts Trophy, both times losing to Michael van Gerwen. He reached his first premier event final in October at the 2017 European Championship, again losing to van Gerwen.
2018
Cross made his World Championship debut in 2018 as the 20th seed, reaching the final against Phil Taylor following wins over Seigo Asada, Michael Smith, John Henderson, Dimitri Van den Bergh and Michael van Gerwen. In the final he defeated Taylor, who had previously announced that he would retire after the tournament, 7–2 in sets. He is the only player to have survived match darts in two different rounds and then go on to win the World title. He became the 10th player to win the World Championship at the first attempt. Winning the World Championship meant that he finished at number 3 in the PDC Order of Merit and earned automatic qualification for the 2018 Premier League Darts. Cross was tipped by a few pundits to have an off year as they thought that the pressure of being world champion would get to him, despite this he made a good showing on his premier league debut making it to the semi finals. However, he only won one players championship title in comparison to 2017 where he won 4, he won players championship 13 by defeating Peter Wright in the final and he won his first World Series event which was the Brisbane Darts Masters by defeating Micheal Van Gerwen 10-6 in the final. He had made two previous World Series finals that year : Las Vegas and Shanghai.
Cross spent the majority of his early life living in Edenbridge, Kent. Cross was an electrician before turning professional. His nickname of "Voltage" comes from his former profession. He has three children. His darts career started as a darts team player in the Powder Monkey, Wallsend Cross has three nephews based in East Anglia, one of which is named Tom. In 2020 his frustration was made aware with his inability to play darts due to the pandemic.
Michael van Gerwen
Phil Taylor
Gerwyn Price
Gary Anderson
Damon Heta