Diogo and The World Championship
We aim to keep you up to date with all the preparation for Diogo's big day at The Palace!
We plan to keep you all up to date on Diogo's preparation for the World Championships over the next few weeks and this is our first blog of the series.The Draw
We must start with the draw and all the repercussions from that. I had two thoughts on the draw. The first was that if Diogo was going to get a top player then it may as well be one of the "big boys", MVG, Taylor, Anderson or Snakebite! And if it wasn't going to be one of them then a player that would not be such a glamorous opponent but who would present a chance of progressing through to the next round.This theory sounds good doesn't it? And it is until you go through the list of 32 seeds and realise they are all brilliant players!
It turns out Diogo was thinking on similar lines and admitted this to me "I was in shock for 30 minutes to 45 minutes after the draw was made! I felt that the draw could not have been any worse and there were 10 or maybe 12 players I had looked at and thought I could give them a good game but I get the number 2 seed".
But after three quarters of an hour I started thinking "this is not a bad draw. What have I got to lose? I don't have any pressure now. If I lose, which everyone expects it's no problem and if I win then I am a hero! There is just one thing, I want to play well and if I lose then I would have had an amazing experience and I will have more exposure".
Then the news came through the that Peter Wright has been taken ill, had cancelled his pre-tournament commitments and Sky Sports reported Wright was a doubt to even take his place on the stage v Diogo.
Diogo explained " I could not believe this news. After being in shock after the draw to coming around to thinking that in fact it was the perfect no lose match for me it I was going to lose this chance. I was of course worried about Peter but went to Facebook to wish him well and telling him I hoped he will be on stage when I fulfil my dream of playing in the PDC World Championships".
The Practice
Diogo has also been getting some high-quality practice in as part of our preparation plan for him. He has arranged sessions with fellow qualifier Luke Humphries, another well known player on the circuit Ben Burton and George, Diogo's regular playing partner. We have another high-quality opponent hopefully in the pipeline and please do get in touch if you fancy a few legs v Diogo!Sponsors
We have one sponsor on board and we will be announcing details of them very soon which means we have just one space left! Come on, get on board and support Diogo!