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Evening Session:
Alan Norris gave number one seed Michael van Gerwen a decent match in the quarter-finals, but never really threatened to win the match as MVG raced to a 6-3 win, averaging a solid 105 and 50% on the doubles, against a Norris that still averaged 97 and never missed a double.
Kim Huybrechts raced into a 3-0 lead against Brendan Dolan in the second quarter-final in the evening session, and then went on to claim a 6-3 victory that took him to the semi-finals, landing three 180s in the match.
James Wade found himself 3-1 behind to Vincent van der Voort in the penultimate semi-final of the evening, but ‘The Machine’ battled back in style as he took a 6-3 victory, taking five legs on the spin to reach the last four.
Robert Thornton made a quick start to his last eight match against Jelle Klaasen, and despite the latter making a fightback, ‘The Thorn’ progressed to the last four of the competition after averaging 96 along the way.
Kim Huybrechts knocked out world number one Michael van Gerwen in the first of the two semi-finals, where van Gerwen simply never got going as he was beaten convincingly by ‘The Hurricane’ 6-4, who hit 50% of his doubles and averaged 94.
Robert Thornton played one of the matches of his life as he beat James Wade in the semi-final stage. The Scotsman averaged a stunning 111 to reach his first European Tour event final, as he beat last week’s ProTour winner 6-1.
‘The Thorn’ played another blinder of a match in the final of the European Darts Open, and this time it was Kim Huybrechts who was on the receiving end of a towelling. Thornton won the match 6-2 and averaged over 106 to claim his first PDC European Tour title.
