Новости Unicorn

Former World Championship finalist Mark Dudbridge took the honours, beating a rejuvenated Dennis Priestley by two sets to nil in the final.

Lewis was a comfortable winner over Darren Latham in the quarter-finals, winning 5 legs to 1. Remember, Latham had beaten the Unicorn duo of Colin Lloyd and John Part on day one of the competition.

But ‘Jackpot’ was beaten by Priestley in the semi-finals. The two-times World Champion is currently playing his best darts for years.

Unicorn star James Wade came agonisingly close to knocking out Dudbridge in the quarters.

Wade led 3-1 and 4-2 before ‘Flash’ reeled off three consecutive legs, clinching a 5-4 victory with an 87 check-out in the deciding leg.

In an amazing semi-final, Dudbridge hit 10 maximum 180s against Ronnie Baxter. It was a game packed with power scoring and clinical finishing.

Dudbridge won 2 sets to 1 with the match going all the way to a sudden-death final leg shoot-out.

‘Flash’ missed a dart to win 2-0 and missed again in the deciding set, as ‘The Rocket’ just kept coming back. Victory was finally clinched with an 11 dart deciding leg.

In the final, Priestley missed too many doubles but both players are now guaranteed to be in the top 32 seeds at the Budweiser UK Open Final in Bolton in June. Adrian Lewis and James Wade have also done enough to join them in the elite.

Phil Taylor, Colin Lloyd, Kevin Painter, Peter Manley, John Part and Bob Anderson will also feature prominently in the UK Open rankings and should be handily placed come the ‘FA Cup’ of darts at the Reebok Stadium in the summer.

Results:

Quarter-finals

Adrian Lewis 5-1 Darren Latham
Robbie Widdows 1-5 Dennis Priestley
Ronnie Baxter 5-2 Andy Jenkins
James Wade 4-5 Mark Dudbridge

Losers £500/10 ranking points

Semi-finals (sets)

Adrian Lewis 0-2 Dennis Priestley (1-3, 2-3)
Ronnie Baxter 1-2 Mark Dudbridge (1-3,3-2,2-3)

Losers £1,000/12 ranking points

Final (sets)

Dennis Priestley 0-2 Mark Dudbridge (1-3,1-3)

Winner £4,000/20 ranking points
Runner-up £2,000/16 ranking points

By Stuart Pyke