d Darts Championships
qualifiers, with the highlights of the round being Rob Szabo’s thrilling
4-3 victory over Ian Moss as the pair aimed to set up a first round clash
with Phil Taylor, along with an average of over 91 from Per Laursen who
defeated Colin McGarry 4-2.
There were also wins for crowd favourite Morihiro Hashimoto, who
defeated Paul Lim, Julio Barbero, Devon Petersen, Zoran Lerchbacher,
Royden Lam and Colin Osborne, who was a late addition to the
tournament after the withdrawal of Edward Santos.
First Round
Without doubt the highlight of the first round was a pair of nine-dart
finishes in one thrilling day’s action during the afternoon session of the
tournament’s first Saturday.
The first came from Terry Jenkins, who achieved the feat, along with
landing a 170 checkout in his match with Per Laursen. Unfortunately for
Jenkins his impressive displays were both in vain as Laursen prevailed
in the match’s deciding set.
Photo: PDC/Lawrence Lustig
The second nine-dart leg of the session came from impressive Australian
Kyle Anderson, who achieved his perfect leg against Ian White. The
Australian ultimately suffered the same fate as Jenkins though as he
crashed out of the tournament thanks to an impressive display from an
in form White who averaged in excess of 97 on his way to a 3-1 victory.
Kyle’s brother Beau Anderson enjoyed success also, the Oceanic
Masters Champion managed to produce the performance of his life as
he eliminated Colin Lloyd in a tie-break during the deciding set of their
match.
All of the top six seeds reached the second round without too
much incident, with Phil Taylor defeating Rob Szabo, Michael
van Gerwen defeating Zoran Lerchbacher, Adrian Lewis
defeating Dennis Smith without dropping so much as a single
leg, Simon Whitlock defeating Ross Smith, Andy Hamilton
defeating Julio Barbero and James Wade seeing off the
spirited challenge of Darren Webster during a tie-break in
the deciding set of their match.
Seventh seed Dave Chisnall, who had been out of form
since a heavy defeat to Phil Taylor at the World Grand
Prix in October, was on the wrong end of a 3-2 scoreline
against John Henderson, the Aberdeen based thrower
prevailing in the deciding set after Chisnall’s doubling let
him down somewhat.
Photo: PDC/Lawrence Lustig
Photo: PDC/Lawrence Lustig