Described as the Phil Taylor of women’s darts, Japan’s Mikuru Suzuki already has plans to dominate the sport after becoming the first Asian player to capture a world title.
The 37-year-old deadeye — known as “The Miracle” in a play on her first name — is slowly getting used to her new celebrity following a shock victory at the British Darts Organisation World Championship in January.
“It really didn’t sink in until I got back to Japan,” Suzuki said in an interview. “There were fans waiting for me at the airport holding a banner. That’s when it first hit me, the scale of what I had achieved — it was a dream come true.”
Photo: AFP
Suzuki did not drop a set on her way to the title in a blur of tungsten trickery that darts legend Taylor would have been proud of.
Her 3-0 blowout of Englishwoman Lorraine Winstanley in the final capped a magical week at Lakeside for Japan’s darts sensation.
A late bloomer in a game once associated with beer bellies and smoky pubs, Suzuki began playing darts at 26 and admits she did not always pack such a punch.
“At first I sucked at it,” said the bubbly Shikoku native, who worked in a department store selling clothes and cosmetics before her career switch. “But that’s what got me hooked — I was determined to make the darts fly straight. Although I never thought I would turn pro.”
Her family also took a dim view of her decision to take up a sport little known in Japan beyond gaudy darts bars.
“My parents were like: ‘Huh?’ They were worried about me earning enough money to eat,” she said. “For a while I didn’t win a thing.”
Ten years on, the outlook is rosier, although Suzuki screws up her nose at comparisons to 16-time world champion Taylor.
“I think that’s a bit of a stretch,” she said with a laugh. “Phil Taylor is a god in the world of darts — he was such an amazing player.”
“But I think Peter Wright is cool,” Suzuki said of the flamboyant Scotsman. “I love his antics and the way he connects with fans.”
With her bleach-blonde hair, Suzuki has a signature style of her own, bouncing onto the stage to the music from the children’s song Baby Shark before tearing into her rivals.
She followed her world title with further success at the Dutch Open, winning both the singles and doubles, alongside Yuriko Yamaguchi.
With only about 1,600 professional players nationwide, and fewer than 350 of them women, darts has yet to enter the mainstream in Japan.
However, Suzuki, who has climbed to third in the World Darts Federation rankings, hopes to provide the spark for a new generation of female players.
“I’ve seen videos of former players like Eric Bristow holding a cigarette while they threw,” she said. “Darts has a much cooler image now. I would like to be able to inspire other women in Japan to take it up. I’m sure we will see more female players from Asia in the future.”
Life has changed for Suzuki since winning the world title, but she promises there will be more to come.
“The biggest thing is that people outside of Japan know my name now,” she said. “But I want to play professionally for another 20 years, so there’s still room for improvement. There’s a lot more I want to achieve.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier