A Dutchman, Lowestoft Scotsman and two men from Stoke will battle it out in a couple of hours time to be crowned the 2013 UK Open Champion. Raymond Van Barneveld came back to win a last leg decider to squeeze through in the opening quarter final of the day. Andy Hamilton just about got the better of James Wade in a match that went another 18-legs. The battle between the best in the world and the best right now saw Phil Taylor silence the Michael Van Gerwen roar and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Peter Wright will complete the semi-final line up and seeing off the two time World Champion, Adrian Lewis.
Van Barneveld started like a train against Ronnie Baxter, quickly taking a 3-0 lead. But the Dutchman's doubling completely left him and it allowed Baxter to fight back and win five legs on the spin. The Rocket would take a 6-4 lead going in to the second break with Barney shaking his head in disbelief. Baxter continued his great performance with a 121-checkout in to make it 7-4 before Van Barneveld found two legs from nowhere to move to within a leg of Baxter. The crucial leg turned out to be leg-15 where Baxter missed three darts to go 9-6 in front and Barney was able to again go within a leg of the Blackpool man, 8-7. Two more legs followed for Van Barneveld to allow him to take the lead for the first time since leg five at 9-8. The Dutchman then missed a match dart as Baxter forced a deciding leg. This time it was Baxter to miss one match winning dart before Van Barneveld took out 16 to somewhat fall in to the final four.
In a slower paced but just as entertaining match, Hamilton and Wade began their match with The Hammer hitting a 111-checkout before Wade cancelled that out with a 104-checkout. Hamilton managed to win the fifth leg to go in at the first break 3-2 down but checkouts of 118 and 100 before also taking leg eight, saw The Hammer turn the game around and he now led 5-3. Hamilton then missed two darts to extend his lead further and Wade managed to win the tenth leg to level the match going in to the second break. Hamilton stopped any momentum Wade had just gained by hitting a 112-checkout to make it 6-5 and the remaining legs were shared to make the score read 8-8. Wade missed a dart to take the lead in leg-17 and Hamilton took advantage by taking out 84 on the bull before also taking the next leg to avoid a deciding leg and win the match 10-8.
The most anticipated quarter final was always between Taylor and Van Gerwen. Despite winning the first leg, Van Gerwen didn't really have a sniff of victory as Taylor always kept the Dutchman behind him. Van Gerwen had to win the fifth leg to only be 3-2 behind going in to the first break. Taylor missed three darts to extend his lead to 5-2 and The Power also missed a dart to win leg ten which allowed Van Gerwen to level the match up at 5-5. Taylor missed a further three darts to win leg-12 and Van Gerwen levelled once more. But Taylor did manage to take the next three legs, including a 125-checkout in leg-15 to go within a leg of victory. Van Gerwen made it 9-7 before missing three darts to keep the game alive and the best player in the world secured a 10-7 victory to take the penultimate semi-final place.
The performance of the quarter finals has to go to Wright as he continued his fantastic form to beat Lewis. After levelling up in the second leg, Lewis didn't another leg until the tenth where he found himself 8-2 behind. This was a combination of missed doubles from Jackpot but also some great darts from Snakebite. Lewis did manage to win four legs on the spin to make it 9-6 but it was too little too late as Wright won the 16th leg to superbly win 10-6.
Semi-Final Draw
Raymond Van Barneveld v Andy Hamilton
Phil Taylor v Peter Wright
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