Dave goes through Payne barrier for stunning win
DAVE CHISNALL fought through the Payne barrier with a thrilling fightback at the William Hill World Championship yesterday.
No.12 seed ‘Chizzy’ was on the verge of becoming the biggest name so far to crash out at the Ally Pally with Josh Payne in command at 2-0 up. But Chisnall, a world quarterfinalist two years ago, came storming back to triumph 3-2.
Payne, 25, won the opening seven legs without reply and when Chizzy finally turned it around by making it 2-1, he pointed at the oche during the break to say, ‘I am staying here’.
And stay he did, drawing level before taking the fifth set 3-1.
“Josh played phenomenal in the first two sets,” said the
38-year-old. “When I came off at the second break, I thought, ‘He cannot play like this all the time’. “I never thought it was game up. It was exciting for the crowd and possibly one of the best comebacks of my career. I did not give in, I just kept battling.”
Payne, at his second world championship, averaged an amazing 116 at the end of the first set – which he won with a checkout of 125 – before also landing the next 3-0 and moving 1-0 ahead in the third.
Chizzy eventually won a leg with an 80 checkout, turning the tide which saw him book a place in round three. He blew two match darts before double two sealed it.
After Lisa Ashton gave Jan Dekker a fright on the opening night, Russia’s Anastasia Dobromyslova faces Ryan Joyce this evening.
Dobromyslova (below) said: “They started calling me ‘From Russia With Love’ on the circuit and it stuck. I thought, ‘Okay, I can live with that’.
Beat
“But they tried to play the James Bond music as my walk-on at a BDO event and I was like, ‘I’ll kill you!’. “I was refusing to go on stage. I didn’t want to play. Who did this? Why are you doing this to me?
“Is there any reason why a woman shouldn’t beat a man?
“You look at some games and they last for an hour, maybe two, and all that concentration is hard. “Sometimes when I am playing I think, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do for tea tonight? Have I done the washing yet!’.
“But there is still sexism in sport. You still get the odd comment (on social media) that women should stay at home in the kitchen, but the PDC have always been very good to me – and very professional.” Dobromyslova will earn £15,000 if she can beat the world No.74, which is more than she did for winning any of her three Lakeside ladies’ world titles. “When I won the ladies’ world title my prize money was £12,000, which might cover my year’s travel, but that’s it,” she said. “You’re only breaking even if you win the world championship.”