Updated: December 4, 2024
Day six at Lakeside brought mixed luck for the two remaining Americans. The first person of the afternoon was Florida legend Paula Murphy.
Paula faced the 6th seed, Aletta Wajer. Everything was looking good when the reigning Cleveland Extravaganza champion and Charlotte Open champion started with a score of 40 while her opponent still had an 88. That, of course, didn’t discourage the Dutchwoman, who bounced back to win the next three games and the set.
Wajer won the first game of the second set, but in this case the situation was opposite to the first one, and the American won the next three sets. With Murphy seemingly dominating, our hopes were high, but Wajer raised them a notch. In the first match with 12 shuttles, she shot 170, but finished the next turn. A 180 shot helped her claim second place, and an opening salvo of 100, 140, 81 secured her the match win.
That left Jason Brandon. Six days after the event, the Tennessee man finally took his darts out of his suitcase! Hannes Schnier showed some good stuff in his first match, but the Virginia Beach Classic champion quickly gained momentum and finished the first set on straight legs.
This consistency continued in the second quarter and even though the Austrian was on the scoreboard in the third game, it was soon 2-0. Nice 13 (140, 140, 57, 140, 24) started the third set, and two games later Jason Brandon was in the top 16.
After such a long wait for his first appearance, Brandon will play again tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon against Belgian Sybren Gijbels.
Elsewhere, former ADO hero Paul Lim secured his place in the top 16 with a hard-fought victory over No. 7 seed Kai Fan Leung, while No. 4 seed Brandon Weening lost in straight sets to Shane McGuirk. On the distaff side, Beau Greaves defeated Kirsi Viinikainen, and Lerena Rietbergen sent third seed Rhian O’Sullivan to the team.
Don’t forget that you can watch all of tomorrow’s action live Great! Gameand get detailed match information on the website DartConnect
