Quarter-final epic – Was it the best darts game ever?
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With the eyes of darts fans firmly focused on Sunday’s Ladbrokes World Darts Championship semi-finals, many are still raving about how Michael van Gerwen ended Adrian Lewis’s reign as Ally Pally king.
In a game that saw Van Gerwen defeat the defending champion 5-4 in a quarter-final tie that went back and forth constantly, both players rightly spoke of how good the match was on Saturday night. They both averaged over 100 per visit to the board, shared 26 180s and six checkouts of over 100.
After the match, Lewis claimed that it was possibly the best game ever as his 15-game winning streak in the tournament came to an end, but can that be true?
Lewis, who was bidding to win the competition for the third successive time, said: “I know I’ve lost but I loved the match and it’s probably one of the best games you’ll ever see.”
It was arguably the best match of the tournament because of the quality and fight shown by both players, but best of all time?
In the press room at the Alexandra Palace, Sky Sports commentator John Gwynne disagreed with Lewis’ sentiment.
“It was probably the best quarter-final ever, but to say that it was better than the 2007 Ladbrokes World Darts Championship wasn’t quite right,” said Gwynne.
“Aside from the final of 2007 in which Raymond van Barneveld beat Phil Taylor, the 2003 final between Taylor and John Part also beats it. The same goes for the 2004 final where Taylor beat Kevin Painter too, as they were all bigger games.”
With only three games left of this year’s event, many fans are wondering whether the Lewis/van Gerwen tie can be topped in terms of drama and quality.
Sunday’s second semi-final sees Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld reprise their rivalry, and the expectation is that it could be even better than what we saw before. If you fancy the dup to produce another tight finish then Taylor is 6/1 to win 6-5.
Until that match happens, everyone will be talking about where they were when Van Gerwen beat Lewis.
Please Note: All Odds and Markets are correct at the time of publishing
