Bank Holiday Brazilliance

With the Red Dragon Champion of Champions going on at the Depot in Cardiff, play continued elsewhere on a fabulously busy holiday weekend for grassroots darts. The ADC had ranking points to be won as 17 sanctioned events commenced.

Diogo Portela earnt himself a whopping 256 points in two days having won the Cleveland Festival of Darts Warmup on Sunday before winning the main event on Bank Holiday Monday.

Braziliant certainly moved up the ADC Rankings after beating Raymond Marshall in the Final on Monday 6-4 having won the day before against Jamie Durrant, claiming the last leg decider 3-2 in Stockton on Tees.

A brilliant weekend for a man that has appeared on the Ally Pally stage five times after he moved to 25^th in the ADC Rankings, sitting eight points behind ADC Championship Tour 4 winner Dan Read who this weekend reached the Final of the Champion of Champions Plate Tournament.

The World Darts Open may have been postponed but the top two in the rankings will qualify as seeds for the tournament when it’s re-scheduled, with the winner set to claim a massive £10,000 prize pot.

Even though he didn’t win the East Middlesbrough Darts Open, Adam Atkinson moves 22 points ahead of Steve Brown, and into second place, after claiming 70 points across the Bank Holiday weekend tournaments.

The Poolie took part in three events but his most successful was on Teesside on Saturday coming through a field that included Live League sensation Jim McEwan and 2012 World Finalist Andy Hamilton, beating the Hammer 5-1 in the Semis with a huge average of 101.30 including an 84 checkout in the first leg for a break of throw.

The Stoke on Trent thrower despite losing hit the highest checkout of the tungsten tussle, breaking throw brilliantly in the fourth leg with a 152 finish to complete a 15-dart leg.

Unfortunately for the ADC Number 2, Atkinson, it wasn’t to be a tournament victory as he lost out to Chris Dobey in the Final. Hollywood recorded a 91.94 average and a maximum over the course of the six legs.

Chris is not eligible for the 128 ranking points available because he’s a PDC Tour card holder but still walked away from Middlesbrough a champion for the second time this year in ADC events.

Paula Jacklin won the Ladies event having not dropped a single leg on route to her first ADC victory of the year, beating Kelly Haverson 4-0 in the Final including a 79 check out in the second leg to break throw.

ADC Number 1 Matt Jackson made it 23 ADC tournament victories after winning the Albert Nelson Gainey Memorial Cup at Bar501 having beat Terry Britton 5-0 in the Final in Bristol. The Action included a fantastic 11 dart break of throw in the fourth leg after finishing 88, with 32 more ranking points added to his overall tally which now stands at 1241 points.

The 38-year-old still has work to do in the ADC Championship Tour to reach the Grand Finals, but is all but guaranteed to be a seed at the World Darts Open, leading Championship Tour 1 winner Atkinson in second by 351 points.

Kevin McDine leapfrogged Phil Borthwick into tenth after he won the Globe Paddy Loughran Memorial, winning in the Globe Hotel Gateshead for the second time in two months. The 37-year-old from Wallsend moves onto 443 points trailing Geoff Murray in ninth by 28 points.

SupaMC earned himself 96 points over two days having reached the Last 4 of the Cleveland Festival of Darts Warmup competition on the Sunday. The Englishman beat David Gradwell 5-3 in the Final with an average of 73.86 in the Northeast and included victories over Murray and Paul Nesbitt on route to the title.

Another shift in the rankings and more events are scheduled for next week with the Riley’s’ Chorlton September GSoD and the Neville Darts Slam taking place next Sunday.

ADC Rankings: