Skyline Drifter

Meanwhile in other news World Wars I and II have both ended and the Titanic sunk. If you go back two pages in the thread you'll find lengthy debate on the wildcards which were announced days ago.

He'll be doing well to reach the last eight at the French really. Be interesting to see how far he can get in clay tournaments now. His game has clearly moved up a level so he should be able to do better than last year but still luck of the draw could easily get him a clay specialist early rounds in many tournaments.

Ah, hadn't noticed that. Cheers Carlos.

Djokovic hasn't played this year yet. Didn't go to the invitational tournament last week and isn't playing here. Whether he's taking an extended break having won the Masters Cup or whether he has an injury I do not know.

Murray won in straight sets again and now faces Federer in the semi final again, just as he did last weekend. Nadal lost to Monfils in the other half of the draw and seems to be really struggling just now.

Murray won 6-2 6-4

Interviews are in the backstage players practice area. Bobby George is a wide boy. I've never especially liked him. It's much better when they get John Part in. As for the rest, yeah it was inevitable as the PDC grew and gained prize money that the best players (Adams apart) would jump ship. That's happening more and more now and the end result will either be the PDC takes over running darts (though I don't think it actually wants to) or the BDO will eventually become a development / youth organisation running grass roots level darts and bringing players on to the "pros". In effect that's what it is now. When the two organisations first split, for all the PDC's fanfare and razzamatazz for the first several years there was next to feck all between the averages and not actually a lot of odds between the player quality if you took out Taylor. Once the likes of Barneveld, Part, Baxter et all jumped ship it was always going to be the end for any genuine competition between the two and now with Thornton, King and the young Dutch boys away too it's just more one sided. There's still very much a role to play for the BDO and I hope the BBC continue to support this tournament, without which they may as well end it.

Taylor wins 5-2 in the end and I thought was distinctly lukewarm with King at the end. Seemed to be particularly annoyed at the delay King did in the middle of his close attempt at a nine darter right at the end. Don't know if there was any other atmosphere between them during the game? I was watching the FA Cup highlights on the other side for most of it. Plus a bit of the NFL playoff match.

To be fair I'm not sure I could think any less of Harrington. He's always been an odious arse.

I'll tell it to whoever you like. I bet the actual commentators weren't saying that. They'd know fine well it isn't. And the BDO was the one and only world championship when Lim did his. You know feck all. Here to help.

You know darts as a sport did exist before the PDC came into being right? So, no, it isn't. It's the second. Look up 'Paul Lim'.

That's the alcohol. Have a few days without drink and it'll all be better.

This is one of the worst games of darts I've ever seen on tv. They pulled a qualifying round match off the screens for not moch worse than this earlier in the tournament. Wade is so far off form it's almost pitiable. He's been dreadful every game I've actually seen him play so far (missed the van der Voort one) and this is the worst of the lot. If Nicholson could hit his doubles we'd be finished already.

Wade steals the second set to go 2-0 up.

All in the eye of the beholder then obviously and it's semantics over the definition but I think an average below 90 is pretty poor for a tournament professional in the latter stages of the tourney. I do accept that averages are only a guide though and are affected obviously by how quickly you hit your doubles and also how close you actually get in the losing legs. Fundamentally though the reason I think Wade has been poor in this tournament is that the two games I actually watched he was all over the place and not throwing well at all. He may have kept his average up with the big scores and a few trebles but the consistency of his aim was awful. He may I'll grant you have been much better against Van Der Voort. If the two players play like they have to date though Nicholson will win. I just don't expect that to happen.

His averages so far have been: Last 64 - 88.63 Last 32 - 89.67 Last 16 - 90.76 Nicholson by comparison has been: Last 64 - 96.62 Last 32 - 95.62 Last 16 - 97.40 Wade's average in the Last 16 was the second worst of any winner (King had an 89.88) and in fact every single loser in that round ALSO had a better average than Wade except Dennis Smith who lost to King (including Van Der Voort who bizarrely had a better average than Wade despite losing 4-0 to him!). Wade also had the third lowest winning average of the Last 32 (he was marginally better than Ronnie Baxter and a point better than Barrie Bates). Of the last eight remaining their tournament averages are: Taylor - 100.76 Barneveld - 100.19 Nicholson 96.34 Stompe - 94.28 Klaasen - 93.77 King - 90.47 Wade - 89.78 Bates 88.56 By professional darts standards I think he's been pretty poor in the tournament and, whilst I accept to an extent you can only beat what's in front of you, his having got this far is an indictment of the good draw he's had more than that he's played at all well. He should have been behind to Dolan in the first round but Dolan couldn't hit his doubles. He was dreadful early on against Eccles but moved out of his lethargy long enough to come back and win. I didn't see the van der Voort game to be fair but even in that one his averages were nothing clever for this level. All that said I still pretty much expect him to find some form and beat Nicholson, I just found it odd you were claiming he'd "been playing decent in this tournament". I don't think he's been anything like as good as "decent".

I have to say I've seen a couple of his games and Wade has been fecking awful by his own standards and damned lucky to get this far. He may well beat Nicholson as he's fundamentally a better player with more big time darts experience plus Nicholson wasn't that clever last time out either but Wade hasn't looked anything like as good as his seeding so far. King, Stompe or Klaasen all look better bets to upset the top two at this point than Wade does.

I've always had a completely irrational dislike for Kevin Painter. Not really sure why, when you hear him interviewed he seems a pretty decent guy. I think it's just that he looks really menacing on stage. I never used to like Alan Warriner or Rod Harrington much either. Again fairly groundless. I might remember some others I didn't like later.

Yep. Going into the tournament I'd have said only Barneveld and Wade (obviously) and perhaps in form Part, Thornton or maybe even Manley had any real chance. And the last three are already out (two of whom haven't been in anything like the form to do it anyway but they are players who have no real fear of Taylor and have beaten him before). Playing like he did tonight Wade will get nowhere near him either.

I'd agree with all that. I'd be genuinely surprised if groups of people with no interest in darts go along to things like this. It's not like tickets are easy to come by and you can make a last minute decision on it. I expect though that there are groups of people there that include some people who aren't interested in the darts especially and some people who are.

Certainly the best "Match" of the tournament so far in terms of two well matched players, playing well. It was spellbinding entertainment at times. Basically Thornton scores sligthly better than Mardle does but he is far looser on his doubles (well that's how it seemed anyway, I haven't seen final stats). You always felt that eventually Thornton's inconsistency on doubles would let him down when it came to the nitty gritty. Cracking game though. Credit for Mardle for the win and performance. Worth pointing out though, in an admittedly shorter match, both Taylor and van Gerwen had better averages than Mardle and Thornton did. It just didn't appear such a great contest because Taylor is a class above. As for the crowd, I didn't really have a problem with them being especially pro-Mardle and chanting his name. It's part of what makes the atmosphere and you have to conquer that if you want to win as a non-Southerner in there. They went too far with booing Thornton's winning shots though which they definitely did do from time to time. Thornton didn't overly help that though by making it clear at times that he was reacting to it. I think he wanted to do that to fire himself up though so no point in moaning about it.

You do. If that happened (I wasn't watching) then it was an error.

Yes, not that she ever won, and she isn't as good as Trina Gulliver or Anastasia Dobromolskaya (or whatever it is) but I've played against Anne Kirk in a few local friendly events and won every time. She's been a world championship runner up. I play pub darts. I had been wondering that too.

A fair point. And probably the biggest reason behind my not really noticing it now. And the lesser coverage on the BBC might be why it features less on things like Sports Personality of the Year to an extent. But that doesn't explain why the papers give it far less coverage and why attendances at events are sparse to say the least. A matter of opinion. I genuinely don't think the likes of Perry and Allen are any better than the likes of Griffiths, Parrott, etc. It's easy to pick a couple of players who came from nowhere (relatively) and spiralled back there again having peaked very high up.

'On current form'? I don't think any of the three of them are playing anywhere near as well as they once did and that's the reason they have to qualify for the World Championships, not that 16 players have all gone past the playing level they were at. I also don't think, playing as they are now, they'd have been top 8 any more 15 years ago than they are now. He was provisionally No 1 because there are far less tournaments now and a brief patch of stellar form shoots you up the rankings much quicker than it did 20 years ago. Joe Johnson won the world and was runner up in the worlds. In Crucible terms his record is pretty similar to Dott's. And I never said Dott was anywhere near the best player. Indeed that was precisely my point. You said that a player like Johnson would never have reached two world finals and won one of them these days. I'd contend that a player not that dissimilar from Johnson HAS, Dott. If further proof were needed that today's players are of no higher standard than a couple of decades ago, the likes of Mark Allen, Mark King and Joe Perry are currently in the top 16.