LONDON -- Ryan Searle's surprise run to the semifinals has been one of the stories of this year's World Championship but that he has done so while navigating a rare hereditary eye condition makes it all the more remarkable.
The 38-year-old overcame Jonny Clayton 5-2 at Alexandra Palace to provisionally move up to No. 8 in the world rankings and set up a meeting with reigning champion Luke Littler in the last four.
Searle suffers with Autosomal Dominant Optic Atrophy -- an ophthalmic condition that causes the optic nerve to become progressively thinner, negatively affecting vision.
A keen eyesight is considered crucial for darts players who need to consistently hit different areas of the board with success and failure measured in a matter of millimetres.
"It's only sort of in the last sort of 18 months that I realised what the sort of diagnosis was for my vision," Searle told a news conference.
"It's been bad as long as I can remember, but to have a diagnosis for it is really good and kind of puts you in that place where you know what's wrong with your vision. There's no cure for what I've got, so I'm stuck with it.
"I wear contact lenses now, just try and take a bit of the blurriness away from my vision. But like you see, sometimes on stage that I'm asking the caller what I've scored and sometimes I don't and it puts me in a bit of a difficult position, but it's hard.
"And if I can inspire people that maybe can't see as well as others to pick up the game and give it a go, then that means a lot to me."
Searle's win over Clayton, in which he dropped sets for the first time in the tournament, guarantees him at least £200,000 in prize money, but he will pocket £1 million if he lifts the Sid Waddell Trophy on Jan. 3.
"It can get worse out of nowhere," admitted Searle who said he is unfazed by the prospect of becoming a millionaire.
"So I'm sort of on the legal limit now to be able to drive. So I wear glasses or contacts to be able to drive. And if my vision was to get any worse, which it could at any point, then I'd have to find a driver somewhere. So if anyone wants to be my driver, then put your hands up! But yeah, like I say, it's one of those things. It's something I try not to let get to me and we push forward."
Searle has asked some of his rivals to donate shirts that he raffles off to raise money for charities that are working to find a cure for the hereditary condition.
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"I'm trying to raise money for the Cure ADOA Foundation. It's something that means a lot to me. Obviously, I have it. It's a hereditary condition, so I've passed it to both of my children. My son doesn't have it as bad as me, but my daughter has it really bad. When it gets to about six foot, she can see, but after that, her vision gets really bad. So she's registered as visually impaired, so I don't think she'll ever drive when she's older. Her vision's pretty bad.
"So if I can raise a lot of awareness for that and try and find a cure for it, that means a lot to me.
Interestingly, Searle is one of several darts players remaining in the tournament who have struggled with their eyesight.
Littler recently revealed that he had corrective ophthalmic surgery as a child for strabismus -- a condition where the eyes do not align -- and 23-year-old Dutchman Gian van Veen is partly colourblind and could not become a pilot due to the issue.