New Year's Fireworks and Darting Drama With Draughtgate

With the darting world kicking off the New Year with the World Championships semi-finals, we were treated to two unbelievable games. The night started off with Andy Hamilton and Simon Whitlock, they met back in the World Matchplay where Whitlock was 15-8 ahead before Hamilton won the match 16-15. The match see-sawed as Hamilton took the first set without conceding before Whitlock equalised via the deciding leg in second. Hamilton then took control, winning the next two sets 3-1 to race into a 3-1 lead, halfway to victory. But Whitlock fought back, taking the fifth set 3-0 and then equalised via another fifth leg shoot-out. Whitlock then took the lead by taking the next two sets without conceding to go within one set of victory. Deja vu then kicked in as Hamilton found a Blackpool style comeback. The Hammer took the ninth set via the decider before levelling the match at 5-5 with a 3-1 tenth set victory. The eleventh and final set also went to 2-2, forcing the win by two legs scenario. Hamilton took both the fifth and sixth legs to win the set 4-2 and progresses into his first World Championship final.

The second semi-final saw defending World Champion Adrian Lewis take on the best player to have never won the World Championship, James Wade. Wade came out quickest by taking the first set 3-1 and the second 3-2. Lewis started to throw tantrums as both players complained about being affected by an unknown draught. Both of the players decided to come off the oche and play stopped as the technical team tried to sort the draught out. This caused pandemonium amongst the crowd who didn't want to be kept waiting and the experts were split as to whether the draught would actually cause as much disruption as the players insisted on. The players returned after five minutes and Lewis took the third set 3-2 before he again moaned about the draught, which Wade agreed with. After another twenty minute break, the players returned with Lewis much more perturbed than Wade. This allowed the Machine to take full control to take a 5-1 lead, the third set was won without conceding and the following two were won 3-1. Wade then 2-0 ahead in the seventh set before a cataclysmic shift appeared in the game. Lewis was able to gain two points on his three dart average as Wade suddenly dropped two points. The World Champion came back to win the set 3-2 and the revolt started as Wade lost his doubles. Lewis won the next three sets without conceding to come back and win the match 6-5 in one of the most historic comebacks in World Championship history.