DARTS EXTRA: UK OPEN QUALIFIERS

The big names ascended in Wigan for the first three qualifiers for the 2016 Coral UK Open. This is how the weekend went.

Friday:

Adrian Lewis took the crown on Friday, Jackpot has been in fine form lately, with the exception of a small blip at the Unibet Masters. The scintillating form continued as he demolished fellow trotter Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor 6-2 in the final with an outstanding 110 average over 8 legs to scoop the first £10,000 winners cheque of the weekend. En route to the final he defeated Rowby-John Rodriguez 6-1 in the quarter finals and then defeated Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright by the same margin to set-up the all-pottery affair.

The victory against Taylor was Lewis’ first for almost a whole year, which for a player of his magnitude is a long wait. Also on Friday was a ‘Flash’ of briliance by Mark Dudbridge as he hit a 9-darter and defeating World number 6 James Wade. John Henderson was the days’ other stand out performer as he reached the semi-finals.

Saturday:

Day two of qualifying was the day of ‘Mighty Mike’ as Michael van Gerwen cruised to his first Pro Tour title of 2016. The Dutchman lost only two legs in his opening 5 matches, including a 6-1 win over Adrian Lewis.

The semi-finals posed a much harder test for ‘MVG’ as a resurgent Simon ‘The Wizard’ Whitlock was edged out 6-4 in a high quality encounter, before taking on Alan ‘Chuck’ Norris, a former BDO World Championship finalist and even though Norris gave his best, van Gerwen was too good for him as ‘Mighty Mike’ took the title with another 6-4 victory.

One player for the future may have been unearthed as young Berry van Peer from the Netherlands made the quarter finals in only his second tournament as a PDC tour card holder. The other story was not about who was on the oche, it was who wasn’t as Gary Anderson, the reigning 2-time World Champion withdrew due to illness.

Sunday:

The long 9-month power cut period was then switched off as Taylor defeated van Gerwen to win the weekends third qualifier.

This match was a quality affair as Taylor averaged 109 to defeat the World number 1 6-2 to win his first title since May last year. ‘The Power’ defeated Daryl Gurney, Peter Hudson and Mark Webster to name but a few to make the final.

It could have been so much different for van Gerwen if John Henderson took the match darts that were in his hand, ‘Hendo’ was the story of the weekend finally producing the darts that all in the darts world knows he is capable off. Other stories of the day included Peter Hudson’s run to the quarters, he beat Renee Eidams en route to that, the German who famously took Michael van Gerwen to a tiebreak in the worlds beat Stephen Bunting earlier on in Wigan.