"I'm sick of people online" - Michael Smith bites back at haters after taking first win of 2025 to reach UK Open fifth round

Michael Smith is finally up and running in 2025. After a nightmare opening couple of months, the former world champion secured his first victory of the season on Friday evening at the 2025 UK Open in Minehead, avenging his PDC World Darts Championship defeat to Kevin Doets to reach the 5th round.

The 34-year-old Englishman had recently revealed the reasons for his lower level of performance this year. He has been suffering from arthritis in his wrist for quite some time and has already received several cortisone injections. He also suffered a shoulder injury due to an accident with his son's E-scooter. Smith has not been able to use his full strength for some time, but he does not want to give up and is working hard on his recovery.
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"I'm absolutely over the moon. It's been a long time to get a win in the PDC. But with all the things I'm going through at the minute, that was special," a relieved 'BullyBoy' reflected when addressing the media post-match. "I'm having the cortisone in my wrist at the minute, my shoulder's in a bad place, but yeah, I think it's all working. It's starting to come along now and even on the Pro Tours I've been playing half decent. I think I've been averaging 94 / 95 each game and just had no luck."

Michael Smith in action

Smith won his first major title at the Grand Slam of Darts in 2022 and also became world champion for the first time a few months later. Moreover, he was the number one ranked player in the world at that time. It was expected that Smith would be one of the dominant forces in the sport in the coming years and that several more major titles would follow. After that world title, however, the great void followed and a final at the World Series of Darts Finals in 2024 was a scarce highlight. As a result, in the PDC Order of Merit, Smith has now slipped to 19th place.

"It's now a rebuilding program, where I need to get back on the board and need start doing things again. And I think I'm doing the right thing at the minute. The way I'm practicing, the way I'm working on my game is right, but the results are not showing it," Smith analyses. "But I know for a fact that within a month or two, it'll start showing then and I've never ever been worried about what I'm doing... I'm not going to say I'm going to win the UK Open, or I'm going to do this and do that, but that win was massive tonight."

There was something else Smith needed to get off his chest. "I'm sick of people online," he says with a wry smile. "When I left Unicorn to go to Shot it was 'Oh you should never have done that, you've changed your darts,' but it wasn't that. For years, I've been struggling with my hand and I never, ever made it public. After the Masters I just got fed up of it. Some guy lost a quid another one lost 50p and just give me so much grief online. So I was like you know what, I'll just let the story out for my own sanity type thing. I was sick of it and it was starting to get to me, because no one knew the true facts."

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