From Premier League title to Tour Card loss: how things went wrong for Durrant, De Sousa and others

Peter Wright, Dimitri Van den Bergh and Michael Smith. Three names who were still ranked among the world's top 16 last year, but have since slipped further and further down the rankings.

Van den Bergh faces the most painful prospect. The Belgian looks set to lose his PDC Tour Card after the World Championship, while Wright could face the same scenario at the end of next year.

Smith, meanwhile, urgently needs a turnaround to avoid slipping further down the rankings. These are three former top players who are now struggling to hold on to their place among the elite.

But they are far from the first big names to fade from the spotlight in a relatively short time. In recent years, several players have enjoyed rapid success before gradually losing their influence on the professional circuit.

Some lost their PDC Tour Card, others disappeared from the major televised tournaments, and some never came close to their former level again. Several well-known players have left the Tour in recent years, including Phil Taylor, Adrian Lewis and Steve Beaton, but they chose to retire.

We are focusing instead on players who faded from the spotlight on sporting merit in a short space of time. Glen Durrant: from Premier League winner to losing his PDC Tour Card One of the clearest examples of a player falling from the very top to the sidelines in a short time is Glen Durrant.

The Englishman won the BDO World Championship three times before joining the PDC in 2019. Just a year later, he claimed the Premier League Darts title.

Durrant's future looked bright, and he was also knocking on the door at other major televised tournaments. He reached the World Matchplay semi-finals twice, among other strong results.

But misfortune struck soon after his greatest PDC success. Just two weeks after winning the Premier League, Durrant contracted Covid-19.