A HAPPY LEW YEAR, JAMIE Qualifier into last four and a huge pay day
JAMIE LEWIS knocked down the Demolition Man to make darts history as the first player to go from preliminary round to semi-finals at Ally Pally.
Qualifier Lewis scraped into the William Hill PDC world championship as the last to make the cut in the 72man field. But after his 5-0 wipeout of Darren Webster, he is now guaranteed to earn at least £85,000 for two weeks’ work – more than he has banked in prize money over the last two years put together. Just two months ago, Lewis (left), of Carmarthen, was in despair after failing to qualify for the tournament – and he only scrambled aboard by winning a play-off repechage in Milton Keynes.
He tweeted: “Well that’s an end to a very, very poor year. Really disappointed in myself not qualifying for the worlds this year for the first time since joining the PDC.
“Have one more chance at qualifiers next month but what will be will be. Never felt so frustrated but only have myself to blame, had a dreadful start to the year. Still confident my time will come though.”
Little did Lewis, 26, know his time was now.
Webster, playing in only his second quarter-final – 11 years after the first – had no answer to the Welshman as ‘Fireball’ Lewis rammed in 14 maximum 180s and dropped just five legs in as many sets. Not since 2008, when Kirk Shepherd, the kid from a brass tacks factory in Ramsgate, has a qualifier reached the PDC world championship final.
And now Lewis is one step away from the greatest run by an unseeded player since Boris Becker made the Wimbledon final 32 years ago.
The man who shocked world No.2 Peter Wright in the second round gasped: “I cannot believe I’m in the semi-finals of the world championship – I just can’t get my head around it.
“I don’t know what I’m doing to stay so calm, but I have nothing to lose now. If I go up there and play my own game in the semis, you never know.”
Joining Lewis in the last four tonight is Rob Cross, whose odds have tumbled from 125-1 outsider before the tournament to just 8-1 after his thrilling 5-4 win over body-popping Belgian Dimitri van den Bergh.
Cross, watched by TV’s Davina McCall (above), did it the hard way against Van den Bergh, squandering a 4-1 lead before scrambling home in the madhouse – double one – to clinch victory.