Motomu Sakai
Japanese darts player (born 1997)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Motomu Sakai (酒井素, Sakai Motomu; born 3 December 1997) is a Japanese professional darts player who competes in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events.
| Motomu Sakai 酒井素 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal information | |||
| Nickname | "The Creature"[1] | ||
| Born | 3 December 1997[2] Tokyo, Japan | ||
| Darts information | |||
| Darts | 22.5g Unicorn Signature[1] | ||
| Laterality | Right-handed[1] | ||
| Walk-on music | "Ojamajo Carnival" by Maho | ||
| Organisation (see split in darts) | |||
| PDC | 2021–present | ||
| Current world ranking | (PDC) NR (7 July 2026)[3] | ||
| PDC premier events – best performances | |||
| World Championship | Last 64: 2026 | ||
| Other tournament wins | |||
| |||
He made his PDC World Darts Championship debut at the 2026 event, defeating Thibault Tricole 3–0 before losing to Nordic & Baltc qualifier Andreas Harrysson 3–0.
Early and personal life
Sakai was born in Tokyo, Japan on 3 December 1997, During school he was told that he would get popular if he were to start playing darts, which he did and started playing.[citation needed]
Career
Sakai was mainly a soft-tip dart player growing up and improved through live events such as the DARTSLIVE JAPAN tour, where he claimed a few victories. In 2023 he made his PDC Asian Tour debut against Lourence Ilagan where he lost. In the same year he qualified for the PDC Asian Darts Championship, where he made it out the group-stage, where he met Lourence Ilagan and Paul Lim along the way.[4]
In 2024, he was a regular for the PDC Asian Tour, but he did withdraw for the PDC Asian Championship.
He made his breakthrough in 2025, winning 4 titles and beat Lim and Man Lok Leung, his last victory came against Alexis Toylo, before promptly qualifying for the PDC World Darts Championship through the Asian Qualifier.[5]
At the 2026 PDC World Championship, Sakai became a fan-favourite amongst the crowd due to his eccentric walk-on. He beat Thibault Tricole 3–0 in the first round.[6][7][8] He lost to Andreas Harrysson 3–0 in the second round.
In 2026 he made his World Series of Darts debut in the 2026 Bahrain Darts Masters before losing to Gerwyn Price in the first round.
World Championship results
PDC
- 2026: Second round (lost to Andreas Harrysson 0–3)
Performance timeline
PDC Asian Tour
| Season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | W | L64 | L16 | F | L128 | L16 | QF | L128 | W | W | L16 | QF | SF | W | QF | L128 | L16 | SF | L32 | L128 | F | L16 | SF | L64 | ||||
| 2026 | F | L64 | SF | SF | ||||||||||||||||||||||||