FLYING SCOT GARY HITS THE BUFFERS
GARY ANDERSON joined the bonfire of former champions as he made a shock exit from the PDC World Championship last night.
The Flying Scotsman (right) crashed out
4-2 against last year’s surprise semifinalist Nathan Aspinall – and at 49, time is running out for him to land a third crown.
Anderson became the seventh top-10 player to exit the tournament as the Asp signalled a changing of the guard.
Outgunned in terms of heavy scoring, and irritated by his scattergun strike-rate on the doubles, Anderson looked like yesterday’s man.
And Stockport young gun Aspinall even managed to laugh off the latest attack by Ally Pally’s resident wasp to become the first man into the quarter-finals.
Gerwyn Price looked like a champion in the making as he surged into the last 16 – despite suffering from flu.
The ‘Iceman’ swept past John Henderson 4-0, with an impressive 104.20 average, to announce himself as a serious contender here. Price, the No.3 seed, now faces Simon Whitlock, the Wizard of Oz, in the fourth round tonight.
Whitlock had earlier recovered from losing the first five legs to beat Mervyn King, who went out with a bitter parting shot at the crowd’s behaviour.
King, who lost 4-1, said: “The audience, for the want of a better word, was shocking.
“We have had better audiences here over the last few years but this year they have been atrocious.”
Peter Wright v Jeffrey de Zwaan Glen Durrant v Chris Dobey Gerwyn Price v Simon Whitlock