 The next two weeks, Van Gerwen won Players Championship 1 and 3, henceforth breaking Phil Taylor's ProTour title record.He retained his Premier League title yet again, beating Daryl Gurney 10–7 in the semifinals, and beating Rob Cross 11–5 in the final.The first two World Series events of 2019 did not go well for him, suffering an 8–6 defeat to Michael Smith in the quarterfinals of the 2019 US Darts Masters, and blowing a 5–1 lead to lose 6–5 to qualifier Martin Schindler in the first round of the 2019 German Darts Masters.