FANZONE NEWS
FANZONE BRINGS YOU ALL THE DARTS NEWS.
HYLTON’S ‘HIGH’LIGHTS
New to Fanzone News an exclusive Darts Blog from PDC Professional Mark Hylton, Mark gives us his thoughts, news and gossip on life as a PDC Darts Professional.
27 / 01 / 2012 ” Chilling out in a slightly warmer climate, looking forward to the weekend. Ted Hankey came over at my check-in at hotel and shook my hand, i escaped without any bites !!” ………Mark
__________________________________________________________________________
BEATON’S BULLETIN !
January 2012
Can you believe it’s February already and the 2012 darting season well on the way.
Firstly Congratulations to England on winning the World Cup, well done Phil Taylor & Adrian Lewis, you did your country proud.
Unlucky Australia being pipped at the post. It was a great final, brilliant television and what an ending to a tournament that provided us with unlimited entertainment that brought the world together and has left us with so many memories.
Apologies for being a little late with the rest of this posting.
My knee is coming on well now but still swells and aches when I am on it for too long but am keeping up with my exercises and still attending physio.
My Congratulations to Adrian Lewis on retaining his Ladbrokes World Championship title beating Andy Hamilton in the final. He played some awesome darts throughout the tournament and what a fantastic tournament it was. Superb darts, consistent high standard throughout, with so many close nail biting games keeping everyone on the edge of their seats.
I was commentating for Eurosport on the Lakeside World Championships again this year and my Congratulations to Anastasia Dobromyslova and Christian Kist for taking the 2012 World titles.
My wife and I then travelled to Lanzarote in the Canaries for a well earned break. I did have to leave Nanette for three days, to play in the first two pro tour events of the year in Benidorm. I left her basking in 25 degrees and stepped off the plane at Valencia airport to rain and 11 degrees max.
I had hired a car and continued my journey to the Melia Hotel, Benidorm arriving at 1.30am on the Saturday morning. I was shattered so went straight to bed.
After a few hours sleep I had my weetabix for breakfast, setting me up for the day ahead for the first of the two Spanish pro tour events.
150 entries and I made it to the last 16.
I was drawn out on board 16 and my first opponent was Jamie Lewis, a 20 year old from Cardigan in Wales. Jamie had come through day four of the qualifying school and has just turned professional. I beat Jamie 6-1 but wish him all the best for the future, in my second round I was up against Kim Huybrechts who had such a good run in the World Championships. It was a stage game and I put in a brilliant performance beating him 6-0 and then a very tough third round game against Andy Hamilton with me just coming out on top 6-5. I then lost 6-5 to Paul Nicholson in another close encounter which could have gone either way.
Paul made it to the final but lost to Justin Pipe, who took his fourth ranking title and the first pro tour of 2012.
Well done Ian White for hitting a nine dart finish in his first round game.
On the Sunday I defeated David Jimineg 6-0 in the first round, Keith Stephen 6-4 in the second, then lost in the last 32 to Peter Wright 6-5.
Michael Smith claimed victory over Justin Pipe in the final, his second ranking title.
Congratulations to both Justin & Michael.
With all the new faces from the qualifying school and Ted Hankey accepting his offer of a tour card, it should be a very interesting and exciting year on the PDC circuit.
I haven’t made too bad a start and am really looking forward to the year ahead.
The McCoy’s Premier League kicks off in Manchester this week, GOOD LUCK to all the players.
More great darts to watch on Thursday evenings on Sky Sports for all you darting fans. I will be enjoying it and hopefully one day I will be part of it.
Happy Darting
Steve
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Ian White’s BOARD’S EYE VIEW
Every month Ian ‘Diamond’ White will be bringing us his exclusive BOARD’S EYE VIEW of life on the PDC Pro Tour. Follow Ian as he looks to build on his recent successes of qualifying for The Grand Slam of Darts & The World Championships
Hello all and welcome to Whitey’s board’s eye view, I have to say I was a little nervous about this diary type thing. However Andrew and the guys thought I might be able to bring something new to it, personally I thought I would struggle to find things to talk about, how wrong can you be!
After a pretty good finish to last year I had set a goal to ensure that I did not find myself in similar situations to last year , qualifications and finances are tough enough without making them harder so I was determined to start well. Myself and Maria (my partner) left Stoke at approx 5am en route for Birmingham Airport. On the way we collected my friend and practice partner Mark Hylton and despite the ungodly hour chatted casually away. All was a smooth as possible for the journey, which is good because one of the worst elements of PDC life is the travelling and toll it can take, especially if things go wrong, flight delays etc. Travelling with a former airline steward has it advantages you know, all the tricks of the trade are known by Mile High!
Benidorm was not a bad place to start in some ways as we have been there quite recently and all the transfers and geography of the place were still fresh in our minds, making things easy. Mark was looking forward to the local dish Paella, being an egg, chips and beans type of guy myself, I was less fussed. Pretty soon we were settled unpacked and ready for a good night’s kip prior to the start of 2012 Pro Tour season bring it on!
Day 1
Round 1 -Mark Hylton (6-4) – Bloomin typical, all our manager had asked was that we got in different halves of the draw! The game started very evenly and at 2 across I sat on a nice 58 then Mark decides to be friendly and check out 170! Next leg again I am on a nice 2 darter when up pops Mark with a 122 check out., some pal he is ! After the previous leg the marker had had to replaced, PDC Director Tommy Cox stepped in to help out. Time to kick in now, after two treble 20’s my view was obscured so a switch dart into t19 was required (177), without any distractions a simple 180 was next leaving 144 after 6 darts. Mark was on a finish after 9 so I stepped up with the magic t20 t20 and d12. Funny thing was, due to the quality of the game I was thinking about needing the leg more than the 9 darter! Mark being the great lad he is shook me by the hand. After a bad start to the following leg, I had to dismiss thought of anything but winning the match. I managed to run out 6-4. Well all that for 1 round onwards.
Round 2 – Matt Clark (6-0) – Well what can I say here, Matt had edged me in a quarter final recently so you could say I owed him one. It should also tell you that he is a quality player so I new I had to keep up the standard I had started at.
Round 3 -Keith Stephen (6-5)- Keith had already made an impact, beating Colin Osborne during his Pro Tour debut, I therefore tried to stay exactly the same as before and soon took a 5-3 lead. Keith stepped up and really put the pressure on by drawing level at 5 legs each. My darts then in the final leg, as we closed in on the business end I scored 100 to leave 36 , Keith replied superbly with 140 to leave 61. Double 18 was struck with my 2nd dart and a vital last 16 place was mine. I recall Keith’s score well as he reminded me afterwards that he wished I had given him a shot at it!
Round 4 -Terry Jenkins (6-5) – In the last 16 it was time to face the raging bull. Not that Terry is ever really raging, as you all know he is a great bloke. After 5 attempts each to win the bull, leaving the crowd thoroughly entertained we finally got underway, with me having the darts. I kept up my level and raced off, Terry missed a couple of doubles to be fair and i soon established a 5-2 lead. Terry upped his level strongly and would not give in, guess what another decider, bloomin heck ! Whitey has the darts again and is soon down to 136 and Terry was in the same area, missed bull to go through. I stepped up and narrowly missed double 8 for the match and though it would be over. Terry however went 17 missed 2 x double 4. I fired into the single 8 and then hit double 4 at the first attempt.
Quarter Final -Darren Whittingham (6-2)- After the previous match I had to run up the stairs, see we are serious athletes! To find out I had good friend and fellow local league player Daz “Tango Boy” Whittingham. Daz is a fine lad and doing superbly in recent times. He pumelled me for the first two legs with some superb scoring. However he seemed to fade a little and I stepped up to take control & run out 6-2 including a nice 143.
Semi Final – Justin Pipe (4-6) – Well, here we are in my first Player Champs Semi for 15 months or so, I had never played Justin in any format so this would be new territory for us both. Justin made the stronger start and went 2-0 up and looked solid. I hit back well and felt good as the game became closer and closer. From 2-4 down I again pulled back to 4-4 with 2 x 121 finishes t20 t11 d14 in both. After a poor kick in on leg 9 Justin punished a poor spell with the next 2 legs to win.
Day 2
Woke up feeling fantastic, let day 2 commence. I was well rested and up for another good day.
Round 1 – Sam Hill (6-2) – I had marked the pre lim game and Sam can play well and looked like he may be a danger. A steady game to get started and a 6-2 win was hard earned.
Round 2 – Terry Jenkins (3-6) – Terry had been most gracious after yesterday and it was unfortunate to get him again so early, maybe he fancied revenge. This time the boot was on the other foot, I played well but Terry was in fine form and stormed into a 4-2 lead, despite getting to within 1 leg at 3-4 Terry showed his class in a 6-4 win.
Delighted would not be quite enough to cover how I feel with the weekend, of course I would have liked to go on further on Sunday but £2200 towards the Order of Merit and £2000 toward the Order of the Pocket! Unbeatable. It was superb to get off to a strong start and to continue my form of recent months.
As if to remind you and bring you back down to earth, I discovered that Maria had had the car windscreen smash on her whilst away playing county darts. Typical for every penny in……..
Still after a rush job to get it repaired, Mark and I were collected from the airport late on Monday evening and thus I finally reached home on the morning ( 1am) of the 5th day since we left.
Thanks for reading, all the best, Ian
_______________________________________________________________________________