St Helens darts ace Michael Smith scraped past Krzysztof Ratajski with a 5-4 win at The Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton but described his performance as “rubbish”.
“Bully Boy” Smith scored a 106 finish in the final leg to secure the win and remain top of group A but is still not into the knockout stages.
“That was absolutely rubbish, I want to apologise to everyone that had to watch that,” said Smith after the game.
“I nearly ruined that last leg… but a win’s a win and I’ll take it.”
Crewe’s Luke Humphries followed up his dominant day one win with another against two-time world champion Gary Anderson.
“Cool Hand” Luke earlier in the week said he was Looking forward to facing Anderson.
“I know how good Gary (Anderson) is and how well he’s been playing… I’m looking forward to playing people like Gary… it’s what you play this game for.”
Humphries has now qualified for the knockouts and will face Dutchman Dirk van Duijvenbode after he defeated Steve Lennon 5-2.
Stowe Buntz qualified for the knockouts with a clinical 5-3 win over Liverpool’s Stephen Bunting.
The Scouser was outclassed for the majority of the match but narrowly missed double 12 for a nine-darter midway through.
St Helens’ Dave Chisnall was eliminated after he was was narrowly defeated by Peter Wright 4-5.
Wright will now face Bunting in the final game of Group E with the winner qualifying for the knockouts.
Stockport’s Nathan Aspinall secured his place in the knockouts with a dominant 5-2 win over Damon Heta.
Michael van Gerwen struggled against Rob Cross after he narrowly edged him with a 5-4 win.
The Dutchman is now into the knockouts.
Fallon Sherrock knocked Martin Kleermaker out of the tournament with a 5-4 win.
She will now face Rob Cross in a decisive final group game for knockout qualification.
Gerwyn Price put out another statement with his dominant 5-0 win against Ryan Searle. The Welshman has now qualified for the knockouts.
Josh Rock continued his impressive tournament with a 5-1 win over Johnny Clayton. The 22-year-old has now qualified for the knockouts.
In other games on day two, Beau Greaves beat Ricardo Pietreczko 5-1, James Wade beat Nathan Girvan 5-2, Chris Dobey beat Berry van Peer 5-4, Danny Noppert beat Andrew Gilding 5-3, Brendan Dolan beat Haruki Muramatsu 5-2, and Nathan Rafferty beat Gian van Veen 5-2.
(Photo by Sven Mandel, creative commons licence)
