Merseyside’s Michael ‘Bully Boy’ Smith failed to overcome Ian ‘Diamond’ White in a thrilling match for a place in the quarter finals of the BoyleSports World Grand Prix inside the Citywest Convention Centre in Dublin.
Ian White beat Michael Smith 3-1 in sets on Tuesday night to advance to the quarter finals of the tournament for only the second time in his entire career.
Michael had a positive start to the match and in a hard-fought set, he managed to clinch a 3-2 leg victory to go 1-0 early in the contest.
Smith gains the advantage!
Michael Smith goes into the first break 1-0 up in sets after clinching a 3-2 leg victory over Ian White pic.twitter.com/YIPVMxu0lr
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) October 8, 2019
However, Ian White quickly settled into the game and put on an emphatic display to obtain a perfect set and level the game at 1-1.
The ‘Diamond’ didn’t stop there, he then went on to win all three legs of the third set and looked completely in control of this match, as he went 2-1 after the third set.
Ian then won the first leg of the final set, which meant that he went a resounding 7 legs unbeaten against Michael Smith. However, the St Helens man put up a battle and levelled the set at 2 legs each. Although, it looked too little too late, as Ian maintained his remarkable performance and took the final leg to win the match 3-1.
Michael, who was looking to reach the quarter finals for the first time in his career, has had a rollercoaster of a ride at this year’s tournament.
Before his match up with Ian, he put on an impressive show against Australia’s Simon Whitlock. He secured a dramatic comeback against the 2017 runner-up to win his first match of the competition.
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Image credit – Sven Mandel – Creative Commons Licence
