FINAL AGONY FOR SCOT ONLY ONE GERWYNNER
Gary Anderson misses out on PDC World Darts Championship title to Welsh star Price
GARY ANDERSON’S dreams of a third world title were shattered as Gerwyn Price claimed the title and became World No.1.
On a memorable night at deserted Alexandra Palace, the former rugby union hooker beat Anderson 7- 3 to land his maiden William Hill PDC World Championship.
After 11 missed darts at the gates of glory, and with his nerves in tatters, Price sank to his haunches in relief after nailing double five.
The champion admitted: “I’ve never felt pressure like that in my life. Numerous times I thought I was going to lose it.
“When you get that chance to win, and three darts in your hand, you think you are going to take it – but I had never been in that situation to win the world championship before and it was so tough.”
By knocking Michael van Gerwen off the No.1 spot after 2,559 days and claiming the £500,000 winner’s cheque, Price became only the fourth player in history to top £1million prize money on the PDC Order of Merit.
Price has now won the World Cup with Jonny Clayton, the World Grand Prix and joined Leighton Rees, Richie Burnett, Mark Webster and Wayne Warren as Welsh winners of the holy grail.
Averaging 100.08 and peppering the board with 13 maximum 180s, the marksman from Markham was brilliant as he surged 6-1 ahead. In the sixth set, where he missed double 12 by a pencil width for a ninedarter, Price’s 134.64 average was the highest in world championship history.
Apart from his late wobble, Price was fantastic.
In his last major final against Anderson, at the 2018 Grand Slam, Price landed a record fine for excess histrionics after they squared up on the oche.
But there was no bad blood this time. Price bellowed his approval of big shots and the Flying Scotsman, who won back-to-back titles here in 2015 and 2016, never really got going.
Price added: “It’s going to take a couple of days for it to sink in.
“I can’t even speak but this means the world. I was looking at the scoreboard and I bombed numerous opportunities and I had to have Gary to miss to give me another opportunity.”
Anderson has no need to reproach himself. Not to put too fine a point on it, he has been pulling a fast one on us for the past three weeks.
He claimed he didn’t have “a hope in hell” of a third world title after battling a bad back, a sore knee and a breakdown on the M4.
One day, it is likely he will go past Jocky Wilson’s pair of world titles and stand alone as a titan in tartan among Scotland’s finest purveyors of tungsten.
Anderson was gracious in defeat, saying: “It wasn’t my night but just to reach the final itself is a real pat on the back for myself.
“My doubles were atrocious and when you do that then you get pumped.
“But what I’ve done over the last two weeks has been a big bonus for me.”
Darts has its first lockdown world champion and after the PDC’s showpiece was forced behind closed doors after only one night by a dithering government, the show didn’t just go on, it was spellbinding.
Van Gerwen’s prime-time thriller against Joe Cullen will go down as one of the greatest matches of all time.