RAYMOND VAN BARNEVELD won the PartyPoker.net Players Championship in Frankfurt with a 3-1 defeat of Ronnie Baxter.

The Dutchman added a third Pro Tour title of 2007 with the victory in the PDC's first tournament staged in Germany, at the Ramada Hotel in Bad Soden.

Following a 3-1 win over fellow countryman Roland Scholten in the semi-final - where he came from a set down - van Barneveld never looked like losing after taking a 2-0 lead in the final.

He won the game's opening four legs to win the first two sets, including a 121 finish.

Baxter won the third set in a deciding leg with a 104 checkout, but van Barneveld began the fourth on double nine and eventually wrapped up the win on double five and end with a 100.80 average.

He had endured a scare in his opening game of the day, when he had to twice come from behind against Austrain Hannes Schnier before winning in the final leg of the game.

The World Champion also won his next three matches - against Martin Whatmough, Dietmar Burger and Mark Dudbridge - in straight sets before being pushed again to the final leg by Andy Hamilton.

Dudbridge enjoyed a return to form with wins over Dutch duo Jelle Klaasen and Vincent van der Voort, as well as Denis Ovens, while Kevin Painter also had a confidence-boosting run to the last 16.

Wales' Sean Palfrey knocked out Wayne Jones and Adrian Lewis on his way to the quarter-finals, where he went down in the fifth set to Scholten.

Baxter came from a set down with a brilliant display in his semi-final against Colin Lloyd, dropping only one of the next seven legs to put himself into the decider.

Selected games during the early stages of the tournament and the last four onwards were filmed by German broadcaster DSF for a highlights programme to be screened on 19 April.u

Michael van Gerwen opened the action on the "Starboard", dropping just one leg against Jimmy Mann before losing to fellow Dutchman Roland Scholten in round two.

German number one Michael Rosenauer lost in the second round to Alan Tabern, while former World Soft Tip Champion Mensur Suljovic reached the last 32 with wins over Darren Johnson and Andy Smith.

Anton Pein, who won the German qualifier for last year's Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship, lost in the first round to Gabriel Clemens.

Picture courtesy German Darts Corporation website - click here to see a full gallery.



PartyPoker.net Players Championship
Ramada Hotel, Bad Soden