Terry Jenkins became the latest seed to suffer a shock exit in the 1st Round of the World Championship.
The Ally Pally is fast becoming a graveyard for seeds, as Unicorn’s World No.5 fell at the first hurdle for the second consecutive year – beaten by 3 sets to 1 by qualifier Dennis Smith.
And Kevin Painter was taken to the very edge by Matt Clark before the Unicorn ace became the first seed to actually make it through to the 2nd Round!
‘The Artist’ won a sudden-death final leg shoot out in the tie-break to set up a clash with Spain’s Carlos Rodriguez.
Meanwhile Barrie Bates will be more than happy with his performance. Unicorn’s Welshman breezed past Felix McBrearty 3 sets to nil.
Bates dropped only three legs against the Irishman and won it in style with a 101 check-out…..he will now play Bill Davis – the conqueror of John Part – in the 2nd Round.
Jenkins though, looked flat on the biggest stage in world darts and never really got into any sort of rhythm, as his opponent rolled back the years and produced some of the darts that saw him a regular in the world’s top ten a few years ago.
Smith took the opening set with ease and a 101 finish gave him the second with Jenkins missing double after double. ‘The Bull’ finally found some form and took the third set without reply thanks to classy finishes of 118 and 117.
We all thought that it would be just the spark Jenkins would need but how wrong we were….again, he failed to fire and an 84 check-out on the bull from Smith sunk ‘The Bull’
It will be a massive disappointment for Jenkins, especially after his great run to the final of the Grand Slam. He was highly fancied to have a good run at the World Championship….instead, it won’t be a very happy Christmas for ‘The Bull’ back in Herefordshire.
The emotion for last year’s World Championship semi-finalist was huge relief after he won a 1st Round classic against Clark.
He started slowly, losing the opening set but Painter soon found the range on the T20 bed and won five of the next six legs, including a 126 finish on the bull, to move 2-1 ahead.
Clark though, came back to level and force the deciding set and what a dramatic set it was! We saw ten consecutive legs go with the throw to force the shoot-out….Clark won the bull but couldn’t press home the advantage.
A 140 from Painter saw him first at the double but he missed one dart at D16. He couldn’t watch as Clark had one at D12 for the match! Painter held his nerve to hit D8 with his last dart to win it.
“I am so relieved. The match came to life in the final set and it was all about bottle. I can enjoy my Christmas now and there is no reason why I can’t have another good run at the World Championship,” he said.
Results:
Preliminary Round (best of 9 legs):
Hannes Schnier 4-6 Shi Yongsheng (winner v Mervyn King in 1st Round)
1st Round (best of 5 sets):
Terry Jenkins 1-3 Dennis Smith
Kevin Painter 3-2 Matt Clark
Dennis Priestley 3-0 Warren French
Barrie Bates 3-0 Felix McBrearty
Saturday night schedule:
Alan Tabern v Steve Beaton
David Fatum v Shane O’Connor (Preliminary)
Michael van Gerwen v Darin Young
Phil Taylor v Steve Grubb
Alex Roy v Kevin McDine
And there will be a further update on Saturday night on the Unicorn website, with first news of Phil Taylor’s opening bid to take a 14th World Title.
By STUART PYKE at the Ladbrokes.com World Championship
Photo courtesy of Lawrence Lustig / PDC