The WDF Tour is throwing up a mix of unexpected names and regular trophy winners in the early stages of the 2023 season. Recent Darts World interviewee Jordan Brooks and Yorkshire’s Martyn Turner won the biggest titles of their careers to date last month, as they became Scottish and Isle of Man Open champions respectively.
Brooks, who made his World Championship debut last year and has been steadily rising through the WDF ranks, defeated Martin Atkins 6-4 in a close final.
The event, in Renfrew, is a distinguished feature of the darting calendar, previously won by such players as Danny Noppert and Gary Anderson.
And it’s a step in the right direction for ‘The Sheriff’, who last year outlined his ambitions to scale the darting heights.
“My main target is definitely to get back to my best, and Lakeside, but then obviously Q School and getting a tour card is important. I am playing more and more tournaments now and am very happy with how the last year went,” he told Darts World.
Brooks is not currently set to appear at this year’s delayed World Championship, but with his Scottish Open victory puts himself in an excellent position for an appearance next year.
The women’s competition was defended by the ever-prolific Deta Hedman, who edged Wales’s Rhian O’Sullivan 5-4 in the final.
Hedman has now won the trophy seven times, her first championship coming in 1995, and success in Renfrew marked her first title of this calendar year.
Also impressing in the women’s field was Cambridgeshire’s Rebecca Brouse, who made the semi-final.
Defeated finalist Rhian O’Sullivan also recorded an impressive 98.56 average in her semi-final rout of Brouse and looks every bit a World Championship contender for when the Lakeside rolls around again.
The WDF’s top players enjoyed a fantastic weekend in the Isle of Man early in March, as winners were crowned across the Festival’s events.
In the men’s events, Barry Copeland, Luke Littler and Martyn Turner came out on top in the Masters, Classic and Open respectively.
Copeland followed up from a final at the World Masters last year with a tournament victory in Douglas, defeating the aforementioned Jordan Brooks 5-4 in the final.
Littler has been impressing across the codes of late, recently becoming the JDC World Champion back in December as well as making a strong run to the last 64 of the UK Open.
And in the Isle of Man, the 16-year-old added to what is already looking like an outstanding roster of WDF ranking titles. He got the better of Martin Atkins in the final, having defeated World Champion Neil Duff in the semi-final.
Martyn Turner completes the trio of men’s champions, winning the Open with a 5-3 defeat of Ryan Hogarth in the final.
In the women’s disciplines, it was a good weekend for Beau Greaves, who added Classic and Masters to her growing trophy cabinet.
Rhian O’Sullivan was her final victim in both occasions, with Deta Hedman, Suzanne Smith and Anca Ziljstra the other semi-finalists of the two events.
Paige Pauling was both a quarter-finalist in the main Masters and the Classic Girls champion, a strong outing from the current no. 1 ranked girl in the WDF.
In the same weekend, this time in Budapest, there was success for Jelle Klaasen, Moreno Blom and Veronika Ihász.
Klaasen is already set to be the number 1 seed at the Lakeside later this year, but is still making a good job of racking up tournament victories on his way. The Budapest Masters victory is his third ranking title since returning to the WDF.
Blom, the 2022 Hungarian Classic winner, got the better of Klaasen in the Classic final in a field packed with some of the best Eastern European talent.
And for Ihász it was double success, with the 2022 and 2023 Worlds participant whitewashing Paula Jacklin in the Classic final and defeating Maud Jansson 5-1 in the Masters final.
An exciting period awaits for the WDF, with marquee events in Denmark and Wales approaching as the season hots up.
Other recently crowned WDF ranking winners include: Basem Mahmood (men’s Egypt Open); Sarah Makanga (women’s Egypt Open); Leonard Gates (men’s Missouri St. Patrick’s Open); Paula Murphy (women’s Missouri St. Patrick’s Open); Liam Maendal-Lawrance (men’s Slovak Open); Irina Armstrong (women’s Slovak Open); Benjamin Pratnemer (men’s Slovak Masters); Maud Jansson (women’s Slovak Masters).
—–ENDS—–
Words: Thomas Bartley ( Article appears in Darts World Extra 8 – Heroes Edition)
Images: PDC
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