Jackpot back to future
ADRIAN LEWIS will pursue a third world crown at the Ally Pally after a year when it was feared he might have cancer.
‘Jackpot’ needed an operation for a split muscle in his back but knows it could have been worse.
Keith Deller, the 1983 BDO world champion who is Lewis’s manager, said: “There wasn’t a lot of fuss over his back operation but they thought it might be cancer. That is how worrying it was.
“He had the operation and two weeks later he lost in the semis of the world matchplay but now, a few months later, his back is great.
“They said to him that they had to check if it was and thankfully it wasn’t.
“What Adrian has gone through has been tough and when he played the matchplay in July, he had to sit down because his back was hurting so much.
“Adrian will be back to his very best in the next two years. He will be a major force again.”
Lewis, 32, the world champion in 2011 and 2012, starts his bid for glory at the William Hill World Championship tomorrow night when faces the winner of the preliminary between Russian Aleksandr Oreshkin and German Kevin Munch.
And he cannot wait to return to the most famous stage in darts after the most agonising of operations.
Lewis said: “The muscle had penetrated through to the skin. They had to go up RepoRts through the anal canal and stitch it all up at the top just underneath my spine. It was painful.
“The pain first emerged a couple of months before. I was having 40 minutes sleep a night, that is how bad it was.
“The muscle was contracting and it was going into spasms. It could have been anything. Travelling. Darts probably. The stance. I was told it could have ended my career. I have to take things easy and make sure I look after myself and in terms of food, I have cut out all the takeaways”
But his desire to triumph again is even greater.
“I have become more determined since my operation,” said Lewis. “I took the previous years for granted.
“My form is coming up really good. I have been putting in a lot of work since coming back.”
Like the retiring 16-times world champion Phil Taylor, 57, Lewis is from Stoke-on-Trent and he would not be surprised if The Power makes a comeback.
Lewis said. “I don’t know, say in 2019, if he gets bored of staying at home, watching us.
“I have always said he will probably come back with his walking stick to try to beat us and he will definitely miss the buzz of the highest level.
“Can he win it? You can never say never. If anyone can, he can. You cannot take him lightly. Once he gets to the longer format, he might be difficult to stop.
“But nobody will ever emulate what he has done in the game. He has been phenomenal.”