They didn’t let us down!
The all Unicorn clash between Paul Nicholson and Wes Newton turned into a mini-classic but in the end, it was a touch of ‘Asset’ management that won the day!
Nicholson edged it 5-4 with a brilliant 13 darter to take the decider!
He now has one foot in the knock-out stages, as does Unicorn stablemate Phil Taylor, who saw off the challenge of Steve Beaton.
But the Nicholson/Newton showdown lived up to the pre-match billing…..and Newton won’t despair, because if he beats Barrie Bates in his last group game on Wednesday, he will almost certainly go through!
The Fleetwood ‘Warrior’ broke to move ahead 2-1, only for Nicholson to reply with back-to-back 180s and an 11 darter to level….crucially in the 5th leg, Newton missed one dart at ‘tops’ to break and he could only watch as his opponent brilliantly took out 100.
And so we went to a deciding leg…..Nicholson hit his fifth maximum, followed it with a 140 and he wasn’t going to lose from there! His last group game is against Sweden’s Magnus Caris, who was a convincing 5-1 winner over Bates.
Nicholson was delighted: “It was always going to be close, wasn’t it!? Wes battled away and I had to finds some special darts….but the job needs to be finished on Wednesday night.”
His end average was an impressive 96.5
Taylor averaged just shy of 100 in his win over Beaton.
Beaton led 2-1 after nailing a 120 finish to break, but Taylor hit straight back and then came up with six perfect darts as he moved ahead.
But his opponent kept pressurising….in the end though, it only took one error from Beaton and Taylor pounced.
It looked like heading for a deciding leg after Beaton hit a second 180, but he missed one dart at ‘tops’ to make it 4-4 and Taylor took out 107 to win!
“That was tough,” he admitted. “I knew I had to take out the finish. I didn’t want a deciding leg! My last game against Mervyn King will be interesting, that’s for sure, because he has to win!”
But it looks to be the end of the Grand Slam road for Unicorn World Youth Champion Arron Monk.
Monk suffered a second consecutive defeat, as he lost the battle of the young guns 5-1 to Holland’s Jan Dekker…..and it is now five straight Grand Slam defeats over the last two events for the Unicorn starlet.
When you see Dekker hitting five doubles from seven attempts and Monk with just one success from seven shots, it tells the story of the game.
The second leg was crucial, as Monk missed four darts to level at 1-1 and after that, he was always struggling….there was one ray of light with a 12 dart leg, but it was never going to be enough to challenge.
Elsewhere on Monday night, World Champion Adrian Lewis sealed his place in the knock-out stages after the best performance of the tournament so far.
He trounced Co Stompe 5-1, hitting five 180s and averaging 109.39
Monday GSOD results:
Barrie Bates 1-5 Magnus Caris
Mervyn King 5-3 James Hubbard
Jan Dekker 5-1 Arron Monk
Vincent van der Voort 2-5 Martin Phillps
Mark Webster 5-1 John Part
Phil Taylor 5-3 Steve Beaton
Wes Newton 4-5 Paul Nicholson
Adrian Lewis 5-1 Co Stompe
By STUART PYKE at the William Hill Grand Slam of Darts
Photos courtesy Lawrence Lustig / PDC