He may not have picked up a dart for more than a month, but it was back to business and back to winning ways for Gary Anderson.
The Unicorn star swept to victory in the second of the Players Championship tournaments in Derby on Sunday, beating Peter Wright 6-2 in the final to clinch his 5th Pro Tour success of the year.
The last time we saw the Scot in action, he was suffering a shock defeat to Wright at the European Championship in Dusseldorf….well, a little bit of revenge and a satisfying weekend for Anderson, who was using brand new Unicorn ‘gripper stems’ for the first time.
Anderson was dominant all day, losing only 12 legs in six matches! In fact, he dropped only five legs on his way to the semi-finals! And that’s where he had his only close call of the day.
He secured easy 6-1 wins over John O’Shea, Dennis Priestley and Denis Ovens, before a 6-2 victory over Mark Webster in the quarter-finals.
He came up against the in-form John Part in those semi-finals and found himself trailing 4-5, but an 11 darter levelled it up! In the deciding leg, the Canadian blew three match darts and Anderson stepped in.
He averaged 105 in the final…..another excellent performance from the Scot. He raced into a 4-1 lead and there was no way that he was going to throw it away from there.
He won two of those legs with brilliant identical 131 finishes….treble 17 followed by two double ‘tops’.
Wright managed to break throw in the sixth leg, but Anderson hit straight back with a 14 darter and after more missed doubles from his opponent, the Unicorn man hit his favourite D20 to take the win.
Wright had earlier beaten the Unicorn duo of Wes Newton and Paul Nicholson in the quarter and semi-finals…..he overcame Newton 6-2 and beat Nicholson 6-5.
That will be hugely frustrating for Nicholson, because it is the second consecutive day he has lost in the semi-finals, after being edged out by Raymond van Barneveld on Saturday in Derby.
And it was a case of ‘After the Lord Mayor’s show’ for Barney….two days at Derby that sum up his recent fortunes – one day brilliant, the next not so good. It is the inconsistency that has blighted him so much over the last couple of years.
After his first Pro Tour sin in 3-and-a-half-years at Derby on Saturday, he slumped to a shock 1st Round defeat, losing a last leg decider to unknown Mick Todd on Sunday…..all very frustrating, I’m sure, for the Dutchman.
Other Unicorn 1st Round losers included Peter Manley (3-6 John Henderson) and disappointingly for a second successive day Joe Cullen, who lost 6-4 against Dave Smith.
Colin Osborne suffered another blow in his bid to qualify for next month’s World Grand Prix…..he suffered a 6-4 defeat in the 2nd Round to Alex Roy. It means the Unicorn man will have to produce something special at the last Players Championship double-header before the cut-off for Dublin qualification.
Those events come at Nuland in Holland later this month and it will be a massive weekend for Osborne, who now knows that he has to perform otherwise he will miss out on the WGP.
Jamie Caven’s poor run of form continued…..for the second day in Derby, he lost 6-5 – beaten this time by Brian Woods….and Terry Jenkins also lost in round two, going down 6-4 to Tony Ayres.
Andy Hamilton and Kevin Painter both reached the last 32…..Hamilton was beaten 6-4 by Nicholson, while ‘The Artist’ was a surprise 6-3 loser to Kirk Shepherd, who reached his first quarter-final on the tour for 18 months.
Results – Quarter Finals:
Peter Wright 6-2 Wes Newton
Paul Nicholson 6-1 Kirk Shepherd
Gary Anderson 6-2 Mark Webster
John Part 6-4 Nigel Heydon
Losers - £1,000
Semi-Finals:
Peter Wright 6-5 Paul Nicholson
Gary Anderson 6-5 John Part
Losers - £2,000
Final:
Gary Anderson 6-2 Peter Wright
Winner - £6,000
Runner-up - £3,000
By STUART PYKE
Photo courtesy Lawrence Lustig / PDC