Mighty Mike nails a treble
MICHAEL VAN GERWEN secured his third PDC World Championship title last night after thrashing Michael Smith 7-3 at Alexandra Palace.
The Dutchman stormed to a 4-0 lead and looked on course for a whitewash. But Smith, playing in his first World Championship final, rallied by winning two successive sets, before Van Gerwen turned the screws to wrap up a convincing victory.
It was not a classic final. In keeping with much of the tournament, it was a let-down like the punchlines in your Christmas cracker jokes.
But Van Gerwen, the best player by far in an event which takes longer than the Olympic Games, deservedly became the first champion to win a third PDC crown since Phil Taylor 22 years ago.
He has averaged 100-plus on this stage in 19 consecutive matches, and although his going rate of 102.21 was at the lower end of his scoring power, it was good enough.
Smith, who has never won a TV major, suffered from stage fright and did not start playing until he was 4-0 down.
If he is as nervous and hamfisted when he gets married on Saturday, he will drop the rings and mangle his wedding vows.
Van Gerwen we can deal with in short measure. After Phil Taylor, he is going to be the greatest player of all time.
But for poor Smith, orange is the new bleak. Every time he gets near the treasure chest, he finds Van Gerwen stood in his way.
Too often Smith was a portrait of frustration: Drooping shoulders, shaking head, muttering sweet nothings to his entourage and buckling under pressure like a sumo wrestler’s hammock.
For a player nicknamed ‘Bully Boy’ it was an ominously prophetic when Smith lost the closest-tobullseye shoot-out backstage for the right to throw first.
It was even more forbidding for the underdog when Van Gerwen took out 129 on the bull to open his account.
And when Smith missed 10 of his first 13 shots at a double, allowing Van Gerwen to charge into the night with a 2-0 lead, the writing was not just on the wall, it was trailed in plumes of smoke across the dark north London sky.
Giving Van Gerwen a two-set advantage is like giving Lewis Hamilton half a lap advantage in a Grand Prix – he disappears over the horizon.
Once MVG had gone 4-0 in front, it was not a question of whether he would wear the crown again: It was only whether he would administer a first whitewash in the final since Taylor left Peter Manley at the starting gate in 2006.
When Smith squandered four darts to reduce the deficit to 3-1, we feared it was more likely than possible.
At least he summoned the pride, to make a fight of it, but the result was never in any doubt.