The St Helens thrower will have taken some solace from the tournament
however, as despite his first round exit other results saw him move up
to World Number 5, a position which has ultimately sealed his spot in
the 2014 Premier League of Darts.
The first round also marked a ‘changing of the guard’, as previous
PDC stalwarts Mark Walsh, Wayne Jones and Ronnie Baxter all failed
to reach the second round of the tournament, with Baxter’s loss to
youngster Ricky Evans only serving to reinforce this point.
Photo: PDC/Lawrence Lustig
PDC World Darts Cham
The remaining seed in the tournament all made it safely through to the
second round, although some were pushed, most notably Mark Webster
who edged Mensur Suljovic 3-2 in a tight match, that had he lost could
have left Webster on the brink of losing his top 32 place in the order
of merit.
Second Round
The tournament really came to life in the second round, with close
games, big performances and some standout
averages starting to appear. But before all of
that there was the biggest shock of the
tournament to contend with.
Now we all know that Michael Smith
is a world class darts player, he has
broken into the top 32 this year
and that’s no mean feat, but noone could have expected what
happened in the second round of
the Ladbrokes World Championships
this year.
The St Helens-based thrower took the
opening set off Phil Taylor, but when Taylor
pushed on to lead 2-1 a familiar pattern seemed
to be developing. Not this year though, this year Smith
fought back, taking the fourth set, and then the sixth after
he had trailed again 3-2. What is more remarkable though is
that it was Taylor who by now was feeling the pressure and
Smith turned the screw, taking out a magnificent 128 on the
Photo: PDC/Lawrence Lustig
In the much anticipated battle between brothers Ronny and Kim
Huybrechts it was the favourite Kim who prevailed, coming through
the match 3-1 despite not playing at his best.