Saturday in Dusseldorf saw the second round of the European Darts Championships take place. It was split into two sessions, four games in the afternoon and four in the evening. Each session saw a shock each as both Anderson and Newton were shown the door and exited the competition.
The afternoon session kicked-off with Simon Whitlock breezing past Colin Lloyd. Whitlock stormed into a 5-0 lead before Lloyd tried to make the scoreline a little more respectable. But Whitlock went onto win 10-2.
It's not often that a neutral has a favourite to win, but everyone wanted Paul Nicholson to beat Terry Jenkins to set up a potential quarter-final showdown with Phil Taylor. It was Nicholson who got the upper hand, leading 2-0. But Jenkins equalised before Nicholson stepped on the gas to lead 6-2. The game went to 9-4 before Nicholson finished the match off to progress into the quarter-finals.
The script was written and the stage was set as Taylor took on Mervyn King for the chance to play Nicholson in the quarter finals. Again it was Taylor who was first out of the blocks, taking a 3-0 lead. King then reduced the deficit to 3-2 before Taylor kicked it up a gear and took the match 10-3.
The final game of the session saw Gary Anderson take on Peter Wright. Anderson has looked out of sorts recently and bought new darts for this game. The game was slow in getting started bu Anderson took a 4-2 lead after the game was level at 2-2. Anderson then began to miss his doubles and the game went to 5-5. After the break, Anderson returned with his old darts and fared no better. If anything he fared worse as Wright secured five legs in a row to win 10-5 and progress at Anderson's expense.
The start of the second session saw Wes Newton against the highly-rated youngster Kim Huybrechts. The game went to 2-2 before the Belgian upset the apple cart and took a 5-2 lead. Newton managed to fight back and the players were locked at 7-7. Huybrechts got the massive break to lead 9-7 and Newton was unable to regain the deficit and lost 10-8.
Adrian Lewis looked to have an easy tie against Dave Chisnall but the were also locked together at 2-2. This then extended to 5-5 before Lewis kicked up a gear to take the next five legs to win 10-5.
After his disappointment in Blackpool, Ronnie Baxter needed a good run in this tournament. He wouldn't have then liked to have seen James Wade up alongside him on the oche in the second round. However, Baxter stormed into a 3-0 lead before Wade fought back to 5-5. Wade managed to get himself in front and there was nothing that Baxter could do, The Machine won the match 10-7.
The final match of the second round saw Van Barneveld take on Mark Walsh. Barney took a 3-1 lead before Walsh fought back to level. But the Dutchman wasn't perturbed and regained a lead 7-3. Walsh tried to fight back again and made 7-5 before Barneveld saw out the match 10-5.
No comments:
Post a Comment