This afternoon, we found out who went through to the quarter finals as the doubles matches took place. The format follows the first round with the teams racing to five legs. Northern Ireland and Denmark took to the oche first with the winner of the doubles match deciding the winner of the match. Jann Hoffmann secured the first double to take an early lead over the match favourites. But Brendan Dolan found the next two doubles for the seventh seeds to turn the match around. Denmark didn't lose touch and pushed Northern Ireland to the crucial deciding leg. Michael Mansell found double ten after Dolan's good scoring to give the Irish a 5-4 win in the doubles and a 3-1 win overall.
The situation was the same in the second match between Belgium and Sweden. The pair were locked at 1-1 after the singles matches, meaning another winner takes all doubles match. Kim Huybrechts found two double tens to give Belgium an early 2-0 lead after Magnus Caris missed three darts to level the match. Dennis Nilsson pulled a leg back after Caris found the first 180 of the match. Caris pulled another leg back for Sweden before Kurt Van de Rijck finished the match off at 5-2, giving Belgium the 3-2 win.
The third match of the afternoon saw Australia take on Republic of Ireland. Ireland needed to win the doubles to force a sudden death leg if they wanted to progress. Australia took a quick 2-0 lead before Mick McGowan pulled a leg back for Ireland. McGowan fired in a 102 check-out to make it 3-2 but it didn't deter the Aussies and Simon Whitlock secured the winning dart on the seventh time of asking, finishing 5-2 on the afternoon but 4-0 overall. Australia will face Belgium in the quarter finals.
Croatia were also in a must-win dilemma against Wales. Boris Krcmar looked impressive yesterday and he continued this by taking out 135 in the opening leg. But Richie Burnett found the double 16 then the double ten to turn the score around for Wales. Mark Webster followed that up with a 117 check-out to create daylight between the sides. From there, there was only going to be one winner and Burnett finished 41 to win the game 5-1 as Wales win the match 4-0.
Hosts Germany were locked in a winner-takes-all doubles match with USA. Bernd Roith was considerably the lesser player yesterday, but he began today with a 111 check-out for Germany. But USA were able to turn it around to take a 3-2 lead. But again the match turned on its head when Jyhan Artut hit the bull to make it 4-3 to Germany before Gary Mawson found double eight to push a deciding leg. Germany should have got to the double first but Artut made a mess of 64, this allowed Darin Young to hit tops to just about squeeze into the quarter finals.
South African were the next team who required a sudden death leg if they were to progress to face Wales in the quarter-finals. Gary Anderson's double troubles seemed to have left him, he took the first two doubles of the match before hitting tops and double ten on his way to checking-out 120, giving Scotland a 3-1 lead. But Anderson did miss a big 20 which allowed South Africa to level the match at 3-3, courtesy of Devon Petersen's 101 check-out. It was Peter Wright's turn to miss a double to allow Shawn Hogan to give South Africa the lead for the first time in the match. Hogan then checked-out 52 to win the match 5-2. This set up the deciding sudden death leg and Petersen hit the bulls-eye to win the throw. Petersen came a wire's length away from hitting 126 but Anderson failed to check-out 60, leaving Hogan to find double six to win the match.
After that huge surprise, Canada needed to hold onto their lead to make it two shocks in a row. England required a South Africa-esque recovery to get to face USA in the quarter-finals. The top two players found their form since last night and quickly found themselves 3-1 ahead. Canada pulled a leg back to make it 4-2 before Adrian Lewis finished the match at 5-3 to force the sudden death leg. Phil Taylor finally won the throw on the third time of asking to give England the throw. Lewis checked-out 15 to get out of jail and make it through to the quarter finals.
The final second round doubles match was another winner-takes-all between Holland and Austria. Mensur Suljovic managed a 121 check-out but that made the scoreline 3-1 in Holland's favour. Suljovic then found the bull to check-out 90 to make it 4-2. But Raymond Van Barneveld finished the match off to make it 5-2 on the afternoon and 3-1 overall.
No comments:
Post a Comment