I want to say he was about 66/1. I took 9/1 for him to win his quarter after the draw was out

MVG looking shaky.

Williams could have been 3-1 up here

Who wants it less???

Don’t see MvG coming back

Scott probably rueing those misses set darts in the third round about now

ROFL MVG

Poor from MvG. Match avg 93 including two sets in the 70s, and only 29% on doubles.

That’s now just 3 titles from 17 appearances, rather underwhelming for someone who aspires to be one of the greats if not the GOAT.

Last time all semi finalists were English: 2006

semi serious question - is the 6 months pregnant physique an advantage. has anyone looked into this

it feels like being physically fit would confer some small edge in terms of being able to focus and practice for longer periods, but i'm wondering if there's a centre of gravity effect at work

That an ex-pro rugby player and former world champion lost to Brendan Dolan should answer your question

Yes because you won't waste a precious second attempting to play a real sport and can get right to the darts.

And it’s still on! #fingerscrossed

Meanwhile Luke Woodhouse is playing a really small violin

I was wondering about this too. Like is there some advantage to having a higher body fat % when you do one repetitive motion that puts stress on a specific joint or set of joints.

I highly doubt it.

Darts is just really popular with fat blokes so makes sense the best darts players also happen to be fat compared to say, elite footballers

but in comparison to other sports/games with small physical components such as chess, backgammon, snooker, pool etc you see virtually no gentlemen of carriage at the very highest level, but almost all of the darts masters have that very specific pear shape

I always just assumed that this was due to most competitive darts matches being played in pubs?

I've thought about this about a hundred times over the years. If it's actually the case that it's an advantage I doubt anyone will ever know for sure, at least not for a long time. Sample size of elite pro players isn't big enough. It wouldn't surprise me if it's actually the case though that it does in fact give some sort of advantage.

Most of the things I've heard about why the top pros are mostly very fat is that they all throw for 7-8 hours a day and don't end up getting in gym time aside from their darts, or just don't care to because they've never done it in the first place. You'll get tons of opinions on whether it's an advantage or not though from people saying that it's definitely/probably not an advantage, or definitely/probably is. But none of them actually know.

One thing I do know is that I hope guys like Gerwyn (who is obviously generally quite fit and still goes to the gym regularly) can bring a change to the game and we start to see more fit players at the top of the game. It is more healthy after all. Despite him being an absolute legend already, Luke Littler looking the way he does at 16 is sad.

A lot of beer and no exercise leads to that physique.

you play at your best when you're relaxed and im not sure in that case it helps to be ripped but (a bit of) booze does help

Speaking of body types, the two Luke's clearly swapped theirs. (Pic is 4 years ago at some pub tournament from PDC instagram post today)

How the hell do I find a darts stream these days

as much as it is my god given right and duty as an englishman to take the piss out of the fact that he looks like a plumber in his late 30s, he seems like a super cool kid and i hope he takes this **** down

Cross appears to have started brilliantly