PDC World Championship 2019 - 2

Day 2 and the first woman ever on the PDC Crcuit
The second tournament day was more or less womanless but before I tell you what happened on stage I will present you a woman who didn't manage to qualify for this World Championship but nevertheless played and plays a big part in women's darts and in the PDC as she was the first woman who played for several years on the PDC Circuit - Deta Hedman.

Before she joined the PDC she had been very successful on the BDO Circuit and had been from 1994 - 1997 the ladies number 1 of the World. Due to work commitments she withdrew from darts 1997 and reappeared 2002 on the PDC Circuit. In the same year she won the women's event of the Las Vegas Desert Classic. 2004 and 2005 she qualified for the UK Open. In 2005 she defeated both Aaron Turner and Norman Fletcher during the tournament and made history as she was the first ever woman who defeated a male player during a televised tournament.
2007 Hedman for the second time withdrew due to work commitments and when she returned in 2009 she started to play in the BDO again. After she had won several open events she qualified 2010 for her first BDO Women's World Championship. Since her return Hedman once again tops the PDC women's ranking and took part in every World Championship. But despite her winning every year a lot of tournaments till now she never managed to really perform in Lakeside. Three times so far she reached the final, but lost every time. Hedman played the UK Women's Qualifier for this year's World Championship but lost in the semi-finals to Maria O'Brien.

The afternoon Session of the second day started with an epic match between Michael Barnard and Portuguese Jose de Sousa. Barnard dominated the first two sets while de Sousa took some time to settle on stage and get into the match. Barnard is quite a slow thrower - might be that affected de Sousa as well. Barnard started with a 180, de Sousa threw his first in the second leg of the second set and followed it up with another one. But he had some trouble to win that leg and that exactly was his problem throughout the match. While he scored really well he had a lot of double trouble - the reason in the end that he lost the match as Barnard was quite clinical with his doubles. Barnard couldn't keep up his performance of the first two sets and de Sousa managed to level. In the deciding set it needed a deciding leg in which de Sousa again couldn't find his doubles while Barnard hit his to get over the finishing line. The match had an unexpected stopping when suddenly a loud whistling sound filled the venue followed by some kind of hissing. Then several times a stormy wind sewpt over the stage so that the players were not able to throw their darts.

Quite similar to the first match was match number two between Alan Tabern and the Australian Raymond Smith. Tabern soon was 2:0 in the lead because the Australian had a very slow start into the match. But Smith managed to level 2:2 as well and the match went into a deciding set which Tabern won quite commanding. Nice to see the Saint back on the stage!

Match number three was the match between Paul Nicolson and Kevin Burness and it didn't look good for the very tense Nicholson from the start. Already in the first leg he was not able to throw reasonable scores. The first leg was almost over when it suddenly got dark in the venue - players and officials left the stage...Luckily it didn't take long till the players could get on with their match and strange enough Nicholson played for a short time really good darts starting with a 180 as first throw after the break - some evidence his problems are more in his head. Burness could celebrate a 3:0 win and Nicholson left the stage without his darts.

The last match of the afternoon was the Second Round match between Jamie Lewis and Cody Harris, an astonishing evenly match. Lewis dominated at the start but Harris came back and levelled 2:2. Another deciding set was necessary which Lewis won. It was the best match of the afternoon with good performances from both players.

After the break Danny Noppert v Royden Lam opened the evening session. And already the first match set the tone for this session which was quite different from the afternoon session as most matches were rather one sided. Danny Noppert played with 96.32 the highest average of the day and had no problems at all to steam roll Royden Lam. Should Noppert play a similar performance against Max Hopp it will be a rather hard match fort he German number 1.

Match number 2 ended as well 3:0 - for Ted Evetts, though the statistics don't show the reason for it. And it didn't feel during the match Ted Evetts was so dominant, Simon Stevenson played quite well too. Probably as often the doubles made the difference - Evetts was just a little bit better.

Match number three between Chris Dobey and Boris Koltsov was a clearly one sided one - both statistically and felt. Koltsov didn't play good and had no chance at all against a solid playing Dobey - Koltsov won only two legs.

For the last match of the night Garyn Anderson walked on stage who had to play against the impressive playing Irishman Kevin Burness. Burness had won 3:0 to Paul Nicholson and he didn't look like he was intimidated by Gary Anderson. I suppose it is not by chance his nickname is Ironman. And so Anderson had his problems - after he had won in his usual express-train speed the first set he lost the second set to Burness. One could almost see how Anderson started to think. Propably he had underestimated his opponent - so he decided to gear up a little bit and then experiencedly concluded it - not spectacular but effectively. A solid 3:1 win for one of the favourits and Anderson as well had taken the first disliked hurdle of the tournament.

Tonight it was not as late as the night before and no fox was in sight. But a lot of noisy darts fans were still around!













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