Anastasia Dobromyslova is back at the Lakeside as she bids to win the World Championship for a second time!
The Team Unicorn star battled here way through the qualifiers in Hull to guarantee her spot back at the Lakeside in January.
“I am absolutely thrilled!” she said. “It was a really hard day and the pressure was on, but I hit some big shots when it mattered and I have done it!”
She added: “But I have to keep my feet on the ground and keep focused. This was just the first step, because now I have to go back to the Lakeside and win it again.”
“The gamble of returning to the BDO has paid off for me. It was a big decision at the time because the PDC was good to me and I really enjoyed my time there. But I want to be called World Champion again!”
But it is very much a case of job done for now for the 2008 World Champion!
And it was some day for Anastasia…..she beat the Scottish duo of Lynn Cowan and Danielle Fenwick without dropping a leg….next came a 3-2 win over Krissie Long, followed by a 3-1 success over Dutch girl Flootje van Zanten.
Then she produced one of the best shots “of my life” to win a thriller against Karen Lawman….Ana was 2-1 down but forced a deciding leg and she won it with a quite brilliant 146 finish.
And the icing on the cake came when the Unicorn ace beat Jane Judges 3-0 in the game to qualify for the Lakeside.
“I knew I had something to prove, especially after losing in the 1st Round of the World Masters, but I have proved some critics wrong now. They can all shut up!!
“This is one of the best days and the best wins of my life,” she revealed.
Ana took the huge step of returning to the BDO at the start of 2011 and she had to start from scratch, but she has won four big tournaments this year but this achievement of reaching the Lakeside eclipses all those results!
Unfortunately fellow Team Unicorn stars Irina Armstrong and Steffi Luck missed out through the qualifiers at the Hull Arena.
Steffi gave it a real go, as she won four tough games before being edged out 3-1 by Holland’s Aileen de Graaf in the last 16.
Irina was beaten 3-1 by Sandra Greatbatch in the last 64…..but after winning six tournaments this year, Irina will hope she can still qualify via the world rankings…..watch this space!
Lancashire’s Lisa Ashton was the other successful qualifier…..
Disappointingly though, the Unicorn trio didn’t make it through in the World Masters. Armstrong was beaten in a last leg decider in the last 16 by Lisa Ashton, while Steffi Luck also reached the last 16, but she lost 4-2 against Trina Gulliver……and Anastasia suffered a shock Masters defeat in the last 64, as she lost 4-2 to Sarah Cope.
But the Russian ace, who will celebrate her 27th birthday later this month, certainly made up for it on Friday to qualify for those World Championships and one things is for sure…..nobody will want to play Anastasia at the Lakeside as she goes in search of that second World Championship crown.
By STUART PYKE
Photo courtesy Lawrence Lustig / PDC