"I've won it once so I can win it again" - Rob Cross dreaming of 2nd World Darts Championship title

Rob Cross starts the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship as the fifth seed and one of the tournament's dark horses. 'Voltage' will take on the winner of the duel between Scott Williams and Niko Springer in his opening match.

Cross won the Worlds back in 2018 and since then has had a good taste of winning with several major titles. This year though, he has been left without a major title. "I think there's a big difference with winning stuff anyway, just in general, it's always nice to know that you can win something," Cross tells Sky Sports. "Because when you haven't done it, or you haven't won it and you're saying to yourself, well, I hope I can win it. But at the same time it does get frustrating when you don't win it again."

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The 34-year-old Englishman is therefore determined to get a second world title. "So, I've had about a six or seven-year drought now and I sort of need to change that at some point. I think the Worlds was the hardest one for me because whoever's been world champion never wants to give it back and I get that, but I understand that," he says. "But do I find generally defending stuff or anything like that, it doesn't even enter my brain. I'm not that much of a thinker to be honest. You're always better to win the titles than have them, but at the same time, you shouldn't think from two years ago with money or a year ago or whatever, going in there to defend it and looking at it like that, it's just extra pressure."

"I'll go in there and I'll probably look at it as a positive and I'll think to myself, well I've won it once so I can win it again instead of making a negative," Voltage adds. "Pressure's man-made and it's never a good thing, is it?"

Rob Cross goes on the hunt for his second world title

Cross, meanwhile, is already entering his eighth World Championship. "Touch wood, I never really play a bad game there, I really enjoy it, I love it, it's just one of them places I walk in with all the memories and other stuff that I've had there, I will always love the place even if I wasn't playing," he previews. "If you're going to play your best darts and if you can play your best darts, that's where you want to do it. I want to win the whole thing, I want to be announced two-time world champion. At the same time, it'll just be one game at a time, you know, I think it's one of them places where it's the biggest tournament in the world and everyone raises their game."

Last year, Cross was only defeated by a rampant Luke Littler in a particularly high-profile semifinal. "To be honest, look, we're all born trying to be winners and stuff like that but it's not nice when you lose," Cross recalls. "But look at the bigger picture, you know, the boy and what Luke's gone on to achieve after that is nothing short of amazing. I'm not a jealous person away from darts or looking in. I suppose I'll go up there, I'm a competitor and I want to win when I'm up there but when you come off, I look at him, I just think he's been amazing. He is amazing for the game too."

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