Matchplay roundup

Well, congrats to Phil for an unbelievable result, a real swingy match early on with a great run whereby, between them, six of nine legs were won in twelve darts or less, but Taylor managed to pull away in the end and claim the title. Can't help but feel the seventeenth leg was key, at 10-6 down but having the throw, it's only two breaks with some time to work, but five scoring visits to leave only 126, having just three big trebles in those with plenty of darts drifting into the 5/1, seemed to end the game - Taylor then left tops after twelve and Wright couldn't leave better than 161 after nine, the inevitable happens and it's then a full three break lead, needing to get those back before Taylor holds six times, it's a race against time Wright really couldn't win.

Taylor's final performance was really very good - four out of eighteen legs were in twelve darts, three of those in that nine leg spurt of mutual quality, as well as one to hold in the fourth leg with Wright waiting on 84 after nine, a further nine legs were won in fifteen darts or better. In the legs that Wright won Taylor was averaging nearly 105, indicative of the continual pressure that Wright was under. Wright, to be fair, did get seven of his eight legs in fifteen or less, three of them being four turn wins, but this kind of level indicates the limitations of this model - Phil wouldn't exactly have let Peter claim many legs at all in six turns. Wright averaged 94.6 on the Taylor winning legs, which isn't a bad tally, but he wasn't allowed too many chances to convert the lesser pressure into legs won.

We now have a Pro Tour weekend next weekend up, but then we have a bit of a summer break until we head to the Netherlands at the start of September as the European Tour returns (there's exbos down under but who cares), then the schedule ramps up - another European event the week after, Champions League the week after, the European event I'm going to the week after that and then we're on to the Grand Prix after another couple of Pro Tour events.

Updated adjusted FRH rankings - will post a top 40 to cover the whole Matchplay field, up/downs only cover the top 20, although as the Matchplay field confirmed post also lists a top 40, you can work that out yourselves if you so desire:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright
3 Gary Anderson
4 Phil Taylor (UP 14)
5 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)
6 Mensur Suljovic (DOWN 1)
7 Daryl Gurney (UP 2)
8 James Wade (DOWN 2)
9 Raymond van Barneveld (DOWN 2)
10 Adrian Lewis (UP 4)
11 Michael Smith (DOWN 3)
12 Simon Whitlock
13 Jelle Klaasen (DOWN 3)
14 Alan Norris (UP 2)
15 Ian White (DOWN 4)
16 Kim Huybrechts (DOWN 3)
17 Benito van de Pas (DOWN 2)
18 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 1)
19 Joe Cullen
20 Mervyn King
21 Darren Webster
22 Cristo Reyes
23 Robert Thornton
24 Stephen Bunting
25 Steve Beaton
26 Kyle Anderson
27 Rob Cross
28 Justin Pipe
29 Mark Webster
30 James Wilson
31 Steve West
32 Brendan Dolan
33 Terry Jenkins
34 Chris Dobey
35 Vincent van der Voort
36 Christian Kist
37 John Henderson
38 Robbie Green
39 Jonny Clayton
40 Jermaine Wattimena

With the downtime, I'm not sure what to cover. I want to, as mentioned earlier, combine winning and losing averages and get a combined figure, I also want to look in detail at the precarious position Terry Jenkins is re: Ally Pally qualification, but apart from that, suggestions?