A Weekend of Champions

Photo: PDC

It was a weekend of titles for #TeamTarget as our players picked up titles left right and centre!

Rob Cross kicked off the festivities by winning the New Zealand Darts Masters in Hamilton, defeating Nathan Aspinall in the final. In the first round of the tournament, ‘Voltage’ was drawn against crowd favourite Warren Parry, who he overcame in a 6-3 win. Next up was a win against Jonny Tata, who had defeated Peter Wright, for the rights to face Gerwyn Price in the Semi-final. The reigning champion was put to thaw by Rob Cross in a ruthlessly efficient 7-3 hammering which included 3 100+ checkouts. In the final it looked like it was ‘The Asp’ who would be dishing out the battering as he stormed into a 5-2 lead, but despite Nathan’s onslaught, Rob was able to fight back and force a last leg decider at 7-7. From here, ‘Voltage’ kept his nerve and clinched the title out from Nathan’s grasp. Well played Rob!

Over in Belgium, it was the turn of the Elite 1 to pick up trophies as the WDF Antwerp Open and Belgium Opens were in full swing. Home-town hero Rune van Damme started the weekend strong by picking up the Antwerp Open Boy’s title. On her turn, Paige Pauling matched Rune, winning the Antwerp Open Girls tournament. Paige decided just the one title wasn’t enough though as she then went on to pick up the title of the WDF Belgian Open Girls Champion. Another great weekend for both players.

Down in Portsmouth, a storm had been brewing since Monday when Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler headed to the MODUS Super Series where he would attempt to be the player to successfully defend the Champion of Champions crown. A slightly slower than hoped start to the week for Luke as he qualified for Group B rather than heading straight to finals night as he was used to, but this seemed to only fuel the fire. His first evening of darts in Group B saw him win 4/4 matches and all but qualify for finals night. It was business as usual for ‘The Nuke’ when it did come to finals night though, regularly hyping up the crowd before hitting a mammoth checkout – he’s added a bit of showmanship to his game and it’s working well!

In the final, Luke took down Colin Osborne 4-2 to be the first person to successfully defend the MODUS Champion of Champions title as well as taking him a £20,000 cheque. He’s just 16 years old.