Van Barneveld decided not to wear his glasses in the first round of the 2015 World Championship and took out finishes of 167 and 170 in beating Rowby-John Rodriguez 3–0. He was then involved in three successive matches in which there was never a set between Van Barneveld and his opponent as he edged past Jamie Caven 4–3, Adrian Lewis 4–3 (Lewis missed one match dart) and Stephen Bunting 5–4. In the Bunting match he returned from a break after the fourth set with his glasses on explaining afterwards that the board was looking blurry. Van Barneveld looked to have got himself back into his semi-final meeting with Phil Taylor when he recovered from 2–0 down to draw level, but his lengthy previous matches seemed to take effect as he could not win another set to be defeated 6–2. At the Masters he knocked out newly crowned world champion Gary Anderson 11–6 in the semi-finals, but was beaten by a reversal of this scoreline against Michael van Gerwen in the final.