I’ll remain Wright at summit
Peter Wright stormed to his first ProTour title of the year then vowed: “It’s just the start.”
Snakebite beat Gerwyn Price 8-6 in the Players Championship 5 Final, clinching success in Wigan with a 170 finish.
The world champion kept up a 100-plus average in all but one of his matches as he walked away with the £10,000 top prize.
He said: “It’s just the start. I’m enjoying these darts and we’ve got something in the pipeline to improve them further.
“Who knows what I can win this year? I just take it a leg at a time and that’s all you can do.
“As world champion I’ve always got a target on my back but I feel like I’m giving some of the other players the belief that they too can win anything.”
Michael van Gerwen followed up his Premier League loss on Thursday by crashing 6- 5 to Christian Bunse in the last 32. Gary Anderson exited at the same stage 6-2 to Ryan Joyce. ■ Wimbledon tennis champ Simona Halep battled back from a set down to defeat Elena Rybakina for her 20th career title and first of 2020.
The world No. 2 saw off the Kazakh bright spark 3-6 6-3 7-6 (5) in a gruelling Dubai Duty Free Championships Final.
Halep, who was on court for just short of two- and- a-half hours, said: “I gave everything I had – now I am pretty dead.”
● Felix Auger-Aliassime will face defending champ Stefanos Tsitsipas in today’s Final of the Open 13 Provence in Marseille.
The 19-year- old Canadian beat veteran Frenchman Gilles Simon 7-5 7- 6 (2) while world No.6 Tsitsipas crushed Kazakh Alexander Bublik 7-5 6-3. ■ Geraint Thomas fell away as Miguel Angel Lopez won stage four of cycling’s Tour of the Algarve. The Spaniard’s late attack saw him power away as Remco Evenepoel finished third to close in on the general classification.