Profile (last updated 28/12/18)

Rob Cross was born on 21st September 1990 at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent and grew up in Edenbridge, Kent. Cross currently lives in Hastings with his wife Georgia and three children (Leyton, Imogen and Maddison).

Cross's family played darts and they attended an annual darts event in Coombe Haven in Hastings from the year he was born. Cross took his first steps between the dartboards there when he was a year old. When he was eleven years of age he took the game up and hit his first 180 in practice just before the final of his first ever competition in Coombe Haven, going on to win the Under 15's title. He was also a semi-finalist in the Under 18's and got to play the celebrity dart player Tony David.

He hit his first 170 finish when he was 15 and his first 9 dart finish (in practice) when he was 17. He has hit two in one night when practicing with fellow PDC player and good friend Lee Bryant.

At the age of 15 Cross started playing local league darts. His first teams were The Swan in Edenbridge and The Fountain in Cowden. He played in the Edenbridge & Oxted League on Monday's, The Sevenoaks Charity Darts League on Tuesday's and the Crawley Friday Darts League.

Cross has represented both Edenbridge and Sevenoaks in the Kent Super League as well as Roffey and Hastings in the Sussex Super League. 

Cross has played for both Surrey and Sussex at youth level and Kent at senior level. He has won many competitions in the South-East of England including Camber Darts Open twice, Sheppey Open twice, Mill Rythe, Eastbourne Open, Carey Ellis Memorial, St Peters (Carshalton), Broadbridge Heath, Elmhurst and Deal.

Cross's all time favourite player is Phil Taylor.

Having qualified for the UK Open Finals as an amateur qualifier in 2016 (by winning the Riley's Norwich qualifier), Cross made it all the way to the fourth round with wins against Ken MacNeil (6-3), Wes Newton (6-4) and Jeffrey de Graaf (9-8). At the fourth round stage Cross faced Michael van Gerwen and put up a tremendous display, losing out 9-5 to the eventual winner.

The performances in the UK Open Finals inspired Cross to enter the PDC Challenge Tour. Out of the sixteen events played Cross went on to win three, finish runner-up twice, as well as losing out in a semi-final and three quarter-finals to finish top of the Order of Merit and earning himself a tour card. Throughout the sixteen event series Cross won 61 matches and lost 13. Cross also hit a 9 dart finish in a semi-final against Kirk Shepherd before going on to win the second of his three Challenge Tour titles. 

Cross was signed up by Nevada Sports Management in August 2016 and has gone on to sign a deal with Target Darts and was sponsored by Baby Style UK and Namos Solutions Ltd in 2017. 

Cross joined the PDC main tour at the start of 2017 and has put in some outstanding displays. His rise in the world rankings has been phenomenal. He won the William Hill World Championship (beating sixteen-times world champion Phil Taylor by seven sets to two), made the final of the Unibet European Championship (losing 11-7 to Michael van Gerwen), the final of the German Darts Grand Prix (losing 6-3 to Michael van Gerwen), the final of the European Darts Trophy (losing 6-4 to Michael van Gerwen), won four Players Championship events, beating Mervyn King 6-5, Ian White 6-5, Peter Wright 6-2 and Adrian Lewis 6-3 in the finals, reaching the semi-finals of the Mr Green Sport Players Championship Finals (losing 11-8 to Jonny Clayton), reaching the quarter-finals of the bwin Grand Slam of Darts (losing 16-13 to Michael van Gerwen), reaching the quarter-finals of the Ladbrokes World Series of Darts Finals (losing 10-4 to Michael van Gerwen), reaching the fifth round of the Coral UK Open Finals (losing 10-6 to eventual winner Peter Wright) and reaching the last 16 of the BetVictor World Matchplay (losing 11-8 to Adrian Lewis).

'Voltage' was rewarded for his outstanding first year as a professonal at the 2018 PDC Awards and Dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in Park lane, London on 22nd January with four trophies, Best Newcomer, PDPA Players Player of the Year, PDC Fans Player of the Year and Televised Performance of the Year for his William Hill World Championship semi-final win over Michael van Gerwen.

Cross started off the 2018 season with a new set of sponsors, Sky Sports, SAP Software Solutions, Rix Motor Company and RBS Ltd Scaffolding Services. 'Voltage' made a debut appearance at the Unibet Masters, reaching the quarter-finals where he was defeated 10-8 by Mensur Suljovic. He has since gone on to compete in the 2018 Unibet Premier League and although going down 7-2 to Michael van Gerwen and 7-1 to Simon Whitlock in his opening two matches turned things around to produce victories over Peter Wright, Raymond van Barneveld, Michael Smith (twice), Mensur Suljovic, Gerwyn Price, Gary Anderson and Daryl Gurney as well as draws against Peter Wright, Raymond van Barneveld and Simon Whitlock and further losees against Daryl Gurney, Gary Anderson and Michael van Gerwen, The world champ finished fourth at the end of the season, losing out to Michael van Gerwen 10-6 in the semi-finals of the play-offs at the O2 in London. The former electrician also won the Brisbane Darts Masters beating Michael van Gerwen 11-6 in the final, a fifth Players Championship title beating Ian White in the final 6-4, as well as reaching the finals of the William Hill US Darts Masters (losing 8-4 to Gary Anderson) and the 21.co.uk Shanghai Masters (losing 8-2 to Michael Smith). There were also quarter-final appearances in the Coral UK Open and Unibet European Championship. 

When possible Cross practices twice a day. Around lunchtime for between one and two hours and then again for an hour in the evening. Practice usually starts off with round the board on doubles, having to hit two out of three before moving on to the next number. Practice also included playing around five sets of best of 11 legs against the n01 app at level 11 as well as games of 201, attempting to finish in six darts. 

Cross's ultimate ambition is to become the world number one.