Wales’ Mark Webster caused the upset result of the Professional Darts Corp (PDC) world championship by knocking out defending champion Phil ‘the Power’ Taylor in the quarter-finals.
Webster, 27, didn’t just scrape by either, winning 5-2 against the 15-time world champion at London’s Alexandra Palace on Saturday, having been thrashed 6-0 by Taylor in last year’s semi-finals.
Such has been the 50-year-old Taylor’s dominance of the event that, 2008 apart, the Englishman has been a PDC world finalist every year since 1994. Webster moved into a 3-1 set lead before Taylor took the fifth, only for Webster to hit bull for a 72 finish that gave the Welshman a 4-2 lead.
In what turned out to the final set, Webster came from two legs down to win the match with a double 20.
“He was the better player without a shadow of a doubt,” Taylor told Sky Sports. “The number of times he hit the double with his last dart was crippling, his bottle was brilliant.”
“I hit a lot of 60s, but a lot of my doubles were on the wires. Practicing beforehand I was brilliant, but it did not go on stage with me,” he said. “You have to put your practice game out there. Mark was very good and his finishing was excellent. I’m fine with losing, he played better than I did. I gave it a good go, but I didn’t play as well as I can do and my preparations were not the best, but I can now put my head down for the next 12 months and go and win titles.”
Webster said he was determined not to repeat his mistakes of a year ago.
“The main objective was to do myself justice and I played the board and not the man this time,” he said.
“I could not have done worse than I did against him last year. The good thing is I have gone away and learned that lesson and become a better player. I’m over the moon,” he said.
Webster will face Adrian Lewis for a place in today’s final after the Englishman saw off Vincent van der Voort of the Netherlands 5-2.
The PDC tournament, which is widely considered to feature the sport’s best players, is one of two darts world championships in existence having been formed when leading competitors broke away from the original British Darts Organisation (BDO) version in 1994.
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