Phil Taylor, the tournament's defending champion, whitewashed the competition's first non-British finalist John Part 7–0 in the final.

He defeated Nigel Justice, Les Fitton, Keith Deller and Dave Askew en route to the final.

[2] The 2001 tournament was held between 28 December 2000 and 3 January 2001 in Purfleet, Essex, England,[3][4] and was the first of 34 PDC-sanctioned events that year.

[6][7] Seven players debuted at the world championship; three were required by a tomlin order not to enter any PDC-sanctioned darts competitions for one year.

The tournament featured the first woman, Gayl King, to play in a PDC world championship after the organisation invited her to take part.

[9] Bookmakers and the press considered the tournament's defending champion Phil Taylor the favourite to retain his title for the seventh successive year.

Taylor expressed confidence he could compile a nine-dart finish after having done so in an exhibition match against Warriner.

[11] The draw for the first round of the championship was made on Sky Sports' website by Tommy Cox, Alex Roy and Sid Waddell on the afternoon of 7 December 2000.

[6] Askew had attempted a nine-dart finish before he missed the triple 19 ring in the third leg of the opening set.

The match ended with a sudden death leg in the fifth set that Askew took with a finish of thirteen darts to requite his loss from the World Grand Prix.

[15] The 1995 BDO world champion Burnett had a 103.4 average en route to whitewashing Steve Brown 3–0.

[17] After the match Manley attributed his loss to Harvey's slow play and accuracy on hitting the double rings.

[18] John Lowe, a former world champion, defeated Spedding 3–1 after his opponent failed to win the third and fourth sets.

[9][13] World number 32 Graeme Stoddart won 3–1 over King after the latter came from two legs down to claim the first set.

[6] The 2000 tournament semi-finalist and world number eleven Dennis Smith won the first set 3–2 over the pre-match favourite Peter Evison.

[13] He scored highly in the third set to go 2–1 behind before Harrington compiled a 119 checkout with a finish on the double 16 ring to win 3–1.

[6] Askew took a 3–2 victory over Roy, a match that saw both players compile thirteen maximum scores between them.

Both players tied at 2–2 to force a final set decider that Deller won with a 144 checkout.

[6] Askew produced a three-dart average finish close to 100 and achieved three maximums to win the first set from Harvey.

He then compiled a 161 checkout and three maximums as he took the next three sets to whitewash Harvey 4–0 and was the first player to reach the semi-finals.

[31][32] Askew said him not partaking in celebrations for the start of 2001 allowed for his victory: "Jamie could have pushed me a lot harder.

Harrington made three maximums to level the match after Scholten's dart did not land in the double 16 ring.

[13][33] The last quarter-final saw Deller whitewashed 4–0 by Taylor and the latter increased his unbeaten televised game streak to 21.

[13][35] After the match, Taylor said he felt he could improve his throw because it was out of trajectory and that he had put pressure onto Askew from the beginning of the game.

[37] This made Part the first non-British player to reach the final of the PDC world championship.

[6] To reach the 2001 final, Taylor had defeated Nigel Justice, Les Fitton, Keith Deller and Dave Askew, while Part had beaten Colin Lloyd, Dennis Smith, Alan Warriner and Rod Harrington.

[40][42][43] He then won six successive legs to go 5–0 ahead with a finish of ten dart throws and an 82 checkout.

[3][41] He commented on his win: "I must admit that I did think John would have given me more of a push but I didn't give him a chance to be fair.

"[41] Taylor also stated his belief the result was similar to his defeat of Dennis Priestley at the 1998 tournament.