Will start with the Asian Tour, where Seigo Asada had a great weekend, finishing runner up in the first to Haruki Muramatsu (remember him?), before wining the second, defeating Royden Lam in the final. Wasn't a bad weekend for Lam who made the semi finals in the first event, while Ilagan made two quarters. Other than those, it was mostly inconsistency all round, with few being able to put two performances together in a row.
Onto Players Championship 3, with van Gerwen defeating Ian White in the final, but some other notes:
- Good to see Mervyn King put together a run to the semi, while Chris Dobey was able to do the same. Still a wait for Chris to get the first win, but keeping putting points on the board will get him into the majors, which is something he's missed out on a few times by not much, that'll really push him up the rankings.
- Gavin Carlin did alright, reaching the quarters, while of other new tour card holders, Jose de Sousa won his board, and Andy Boulton was able to do the same.
- Also good to see some European talent return to some floor form, Dimitri getting to the last sixteen before running into MvG, while Zoran Lerchbacher did the same, being edged out by Dobey but after a frankly awful 2018, getting £2.5k in three events so far isn't a bad start.
- Ross Smith is getting some unlucky draws, finding himself against van Gerwen in round two and pushing things fairly close. Will surely just take a decent draw before he goes on a proper run in one of these in the form he has right now.
- Something's clearly not right with Whitlock. Losing 6-2 to Nathan Derry averaging 75 isn't good, and he only got the two because Derry wasn't able to finish either leg in 18 darts himself (edit - having actually checked the score, both of Whitlock's legs were miraculously breaks, so Derry actually had 21 darts to win both of them).
- It's a third straight opening round defeat for Steve Beaton as well, now here he at least averaged over 90, but against Justin Pipe, Conan Whitehead and Andrew Gilding you'd expect him not to lose all three.
- There's some silly losing averages. Hunt losing to Smith with a 104, Nentjes losing to Lennon with a 105, Rob Cross in his board final lost with 106...
A few interesting names in the Scottish Open, which is at the last 32 stage and playing to a finish today - Diogo Portela's there having knocked out Jim Williams, Hogan's a potential last 16 opponent, Montgomery/Barilli is an all-Scottish affair, Cody Harris is in there with a possible last 16 tie against Wes Newton, youngster Nathan Girvan is still alive and could run into Tony O'Shea in the last 16, Mitchell and Harms are still in it, while Dutch Open finalist Ryan Hogarth is in what looks like a winnable quarter, also featuring Jamie Caven, remember him.
Off to put PC3 into the master computer and start on PC4 when that kicks off soon.
Edit - one thing that occurred to me just now that I thought I'd mention. Apparently, according to Twitter sources, Barney isn't here this weekend because he's playing exhibitions in Germany against Taylor. Words fail me.
No comments:
Post a Comment