The Sports Lowdown For All Your News and OpinionsPhil Taylor, Peter Wright, Raymond van Barneveld and Adrian Lewis all booked their places on finals day Saturday on Day Two of the Sydney Darts Masters as James Wade, Stephen Bunting, Michael van Gerwen and Gary Anderson were all knocked out of the competition.
Peter Wright took on Perth Darts Masters finalist James Wade in the first match of the evening. Wade got the better of ‘Snakebite’ last week in Perth, but this time the result was the opposite. The match was locked at 6-6 before Wade missed two darts at D10 before Wright stepped up to take out 60 on D20, and then held throw in the fourteenth leg to win the match.
Too many wayward darts was what was getting in the way of Stephen Bunting standing any chance of beating Phil Taylor in the second match of the night. Wayward darts from Taylor if any were few and far between as ‘The Power’ averaged 101.67 in a solid display in a 8-2 over ‘The Bullet’.
Raymond van Barneveld booked his place in the semi-final with a sensational performance against World number one Michael van Gerwen. ‘Barney’ broke the throw in the first leg, in a leg that was disrupted momentarily by a water incident, which involved Michael van Gerwen spilling water all over himself. van Gerwen lost his concentration after that as van Barneveld raced into a 4-0 lead. The Dutchman went on to close out the match 8-4 and move into the next round.
It was a last-leg decider that decided the outcome of a match between Adrian Lewis and Gary Anderson for the second time in a week, and after Anderson’s triumph last week in Perth, this time it was Adrian’s turn to win the match 8-7 and progress to the semi-finals following a composed performance where his doubling had improved a lot since last week.
