Weekend of darts aftermath

So for those of you who picked Jose de Sousa as part of a scattergun each way approach (Chris Mason, I'm looking in your direction), you'll be quite happy right now, as the Portuguese star made his first final - James Wade would prove to be a bit too tough there as he picked up his fourth Pro Tour title, but Jose can't complain one little bit, as he went on a great run taking out Monk, Aspinall, de Zwaan, Whitehead, Richardson and van den Bergh to reach that stage. Personally, I had Durrant (lost early to yesterday's semi finalist Ron Meulenkamp), Ratajski (reached the semi but lost to Wade), Hughes (inexplicably threw away a 5-0 lead against Chisnall), White (completed back to back first round exits, really), Dobey (lost to surprise package last minute replacement Callan Rydz), de Zwaan (mentioned above) and O'Connor (got to the quarters but ran into Dimitri). Oh well, it's not going to work every week.

That's covered most of the players who went deep - Luke Woodhouse also made a quarter today, which should help keep him the right side of the worlds cutoff, and he'll probably need to do so to retain a card, while yesterday James Wilson reached the semis, which will be a real help towards making the Matchplay, Luke Humphries and Boris Koltsov made the quarters (not a bad weekend for associates really), while across the two days, DvdB, O'Connor, Ratajski and de Sousa won their boards both days. Bit of credit due to Matt Clark, he made the board final both days, which for someone who's not done a huge amount since regaining his card is worth mentioning.

On the Asian Tour, we saw the same final both days and the same result both days - Lourence Ilagan picking up two victories over Noel Malicdem. Paul Lim and the brilliantly named Teng Lieh Pu Po weighed in with a semi and quarter, but nobody else was able to do anything too consistent across the two days.

With the Players Championship weekend in the books, we're now just one tournament away from knowing the Matchplay field. Kyle Anderson's on the bubble right now, and will need Keegan Brown to lose his opening game in Prague to stand any chance. James Wilson's the next in line, but should be alright as long as nobody goes very deep - O'Connor would need to make a semi final to knock him out, as well as having Brown make a quarter, so one nice draw and he's safe. Vincent van der Voort isn't 100% safe but would need very weird results to not make it. As for others that can sneak in who are currently outside, it's basically just Keegan Brown, and then anyone else needs a real big run, O'Connor needs a minimum of a quarter final and Meulenkamp and West need a semi, while many others can get in by binking. Doesn't seem too likely really, I think realistically it's down to just Anderson or Brown who gets the last spot.

New FRH rankings:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Rob Cross
3 Michael Smith
4 Gary Anderson
5 Gerwyn Price
6 Daryl Gurney
7 James Wade
8 Nathan Aspinall
9 Peter Wright
10 Ian White
11 Dave Chisnall
12 Mensur Suljovic
13 Simon Whitlock
14 Jonny Clayton
15 Adrian Lewis
16 Joe Cullen
17 Darren Webster
18 Max Hopp
19 Stephen Bunting
20 Jermaine Wattimena

There's no movement in the top 20, although Wade's win puts him within 10k of Gurney. Smith could have overtaken Cross if he'd won today, that's how close he is now. Ratajski's within 500 points of the top 25 now, just behind Chris Dobey, while Dimitri van den Bergh's good weekend has put him within 300 points of Danny Noppert for the last spot in the top 30, somewhere James Wilson's managed to stay as a result of his semi final. Willie O'Connor's within 200 points of the top 45, Glen Durrant finally hits the top 50, Ron Meulenkamp is within a couple of thousand points of the same, Jose de Sousa hits the top 70 following his excellent weekend, Luke Woodhouse rises into the top 80, a competent weekend for Mark McGeeney puts him up to #90, Boris Koltsov has hit the top 100, while Callan Rydz climbs into the top 200.

Finally, what on earth happened to Jamie Lewis? Lost 6-0 today, which is not necessarily unexpected, but look at his average. Viewer discretion is advised. Can only assume he was injured...