Dudley's Crawley Write-Up

[dudley1975]

Apologies for the late write up but I have been out of the country on business in the middle East since Crawley.

Due to business trip plans changing and leaving Sunday instead of Monday, I was only able to provide marking duties on the Saturday in Crawley.

The journey was the usual one - bus from my house to town, train from Bracknell to Clapham Junction, train from Clapham Junction to Crawley then taxi to the venue.

Arrived at 10.55am and settled down with the rest of the markers before Spaceman gave us an inspiring pep talk.

I was given board 5 and had the following matches:-

First Round - Wes Newtown 6 - 4 Veijo Viinika.

Wes showed his class here finishing with a 164 out in one leg and although Veijo bravely stuck at the task, Wes always looked like winning through.

First Round - Ryan Harrington 6 - 3 Jerry Hendriks

A bit of a topsy turvy match. Ryan scored pretty and but for a few stray darts would have finished with an impressive average. Jerry missed some crucial doubles and Ryan pounced.

First Round - Arron Monk 6 - 5 Michael Smith

A battle of the young guns which Michael looked like winning from 5-3 up as Arron struggled for any rhythm but Monk recovered well to take the match.

First Round - Nigel Heydon 6 - 1 Colin Fowler

Nigel was never in any danger in this one as he won comfortably. People don't realise how good all of these players are and not just the elite. Nigel went bull, bull, bull with his 3 darts warming up for this one!

Second Round - Wes Newton 6 - 1 Ryan Harrington

Ryan never gave up but Wes had far too much in this one.

Second Round - Nigel Heydon 6 - 3 Arron Monk

Solid darts were the order of the day for Nigel as Arron's inconsistency cost him dear. Great scoring in a leg let down by poor finishing or scoring badly but finishing strongly whilst Nigel was solid.

Third Round - Wes Newton 6 - 4 Nigel Heydon (Board Final)

This looked like it might go all the way as was nip and tuck but Wes found an extra gear at the end.

I marked all matches as the floating marker was already on other boards when I glanced up but this board was over quite quickly.

I wished Wes well for the rest of the tournament and congratulated him on his 9 darter in the UK Open and thought I was done.

I was then asked to mark a quarter final:

Quarter Final - Michael Van Gerwen 6 - 3 Terry Jenkins

Sensational darts from MVG. Whilst people praised Peter Wright and correctly so for winning the day and for averaging 125 at one point in his whitewash of Gary Anderson, MVG was averaging 127 after 5 legs of this match and although he dipped, he ended up with a mere 112 average!

Terry played very well and was so unlucky. 3 or 4 times in the match he put all 3 darts about 1mm above the treble 20 and it proved costly as those 60 scores saw him always just 1 or 2 darts away from finishing.

Had he converted some then 100's, 140's or 180's might have seen him take the finishes out before MVG.

Top quality from both players though.

I stayed right until the end and saw some great matches, Ando beating Taylor who then presented Dave Shep with his darts (a nice touch), Wright whitewashing Ando and Wright beating Newton in the final.

That was my day done until the next time!

Sorry I cannot remember more of the outshots and more details but a week in the desert has frazzled my memory a tad.

Duds

[Booji Boy]

Great write up duds.

[Bub]

Good write-up again Duds. Thanks. I was following the MvG v Terry Jenkins match on Dartsdata Live and could see it was a great standard.