In his third World Cup of Darts and first with Michael van Gerwen, the Dutch pair suffered a shock in the last 16 when they were beaten 5–3 by the Finnish duo of Jani Haavisto and Jarkko Komula. Van Barneveld was never out of the top four in the Premier League during all 14 weeks of the league phase. He won 10 out of his 16 games to finish second in the table which set up a semi-final meeting with Taylor against whom he had lost 7–3 and drawn with 6–6 in their two league clashes. From level at 3–3 in the semi-final, Taylor stormed away to win 8–4 to deny Van Barneveld his first Premier League final. Van Barneveld reached the final of the non-ranking Dubai Masters thanks to 10–6 and 11–5 wins over Adrian Lewis and James Wade. He faced Van Gerwen and was beaten 7–11. Van Barneveld defeated defending champion Robert Thornton in the last 16 of the 2013 UK Open and survived one match dart from Ronnie Baxter in the quarter-finals to win 10–9. His semi-final against Andy Hamilton went into a last leg decider, with Van Barneveld missing a total of six darts for the match to lose 10–9. He lost in the second round of the European Championship and World Matchplay to Thornton and Justin Pipe respectively. Van Barneveld put his bad form behind him in October by securing his first ranking title of 2013 at the tenth Players Championship of the year with a 6–3 defeat of Peter Wright in the final. However, less than a week later in the second round of the World Grand Prix he was beaten 3–0 by Michael van Gerwen in 21 minutes. In the defence of his Grand Slam of Darts title he beat Ricky Evans and Tony O'Shea, but lost his final group game against Mervyn King to be knocked out of the competition on leg difference.