However, Part had registered disappointing years following world championship wins in 1994 and 2003, and 2008 followed the same trend. Initially, Part enjoyed some success; just as in 2003, he won the first tournament he entered as world champion with a victory in the Gibraltar Players Championship. But it was to be his only PDC victory for the next two years. Invited into the Premier League for the second time, Part was in poor form throughout the tournament and finished bottom of the league. The results hardly improved, as Part's year was marked by early defeats in most televised tournaments despite his high seeding, most pointedly in the first round of the 2008 Las Vegas Desert Classic, a tournament that Part had thrived in for many years. To round off a terrible year, Part's world championship defence ended as disastrously as it had in 2004. In the 2009 PDC World Championship, he was drawn against American qualifier Bill Davis, but failed to win a set as his third world championship reign ended with a 3–0 defeat in the first round.