Friday 10 October 2014 17:07, UK
Michael van Gerwen progressed to the quarter-finals of the World Grand Prix with a 3-1 victory over Dean Winstanley in Dublin.
Winstanley was very much in contention during the first three sets but faded away in the closing stages of the second round contest.
World No 1 van Gerwen, who will play Mervyn King in the last eight, posted an impressive average of 98.06 considering the double start format but was adamant he should have done better.
“I made it difficult for myself. In the first set I played really well and hit a couple of good scores at the right moments but he had a couple of good finishes,” he told Sky Sports.
“I thought I was the better player but in the second set I couldn’t hit anything. I was thinking to myself, ‘what is going wrong here’.
“I made it too difficult, it shouldn’t be so difficult for me. I should (have) beaten him 3-0 and gone back to my hotel. But he did well.”
Van Gerwen took out double top in the deciding leg to edge the first set but Winstanley responded in style, whitewashing the world champion in the second set to level things up.
The third leg also went to a deciding set, with van Gerwen producing a 120 checkout to move into a 2-1 lead at the Citywest Hotel.
Winstanley won the first leg of the fourth set but van Gerwen stepped up his game and reeled off three legs in quick succession to wrap up the win.
King knocked Premier League champion Raymond van Barneveld out of the competition after clinching a 3-1 win over the out-of-sorts Dutchman.
Van Barneveld, who appeared to be suffering with a back injury, looked like he could mount a challenge for victory when he won the third set to reduce King’s lead to 2-1, but he fell apart in the fourth set.
The five-time world champion was completely whitewashed in the first leg of the fourth set, failing to get off the mark despite throwing 18 darts at a double. In the third leg, he needed 13 darts to get started.
Sky Sports pundit Wayne Mardle said: “He’s made an excuse. There was no need to go for bullseyes (when he was trying to hit the double start), whether his back was hurting or not.
“Walk off. Walk off and say, ‘I cannot finish’. There was no need to go for the bullseyes. That took the moment away from Mervyn, I don’t think that was very sportsmanlike at all.”
Elsewhere in the second round, Stephen Bunting booked his spot in the last eight with a 3-2 victory over world championship runner-up Peter Wright.
Bunting hit a grand total of 12 180s as he edged his way to victory in a high-quality encounter which saw both players fill the treble 20 bed with regularity.
In the final leg, Lakeside champion Bunting almost took out a 130 finish but busted the score when he hit the 12 instead of double five. However, he showed fantastic composure to come back and take the winning finish out on his next throw, this time on the bull.
Bunting will face Richie Burnett in the last eight after the Welshman recorded a 3-1 victory over Terry Jenkins.
Burnett won the first two sets before Jenkins hit back to win the third 3-0, but it proved only a temporary reprieve as Burnett reversed that scoreline in the fourth set.
