The sours and sweets of Qualifying School - Day One
The very first day of the Qualifying School witnessed the victories of Tony West, Darren Whittingham, Richie Howson and Andrew Cornwall.
All these four players were able to secure their position in the PDC Circuit by winning their respective encounters.
They were among the first ones to grab the Tour Card among more than 200 players competing in the event.
Victory came in easy for Tony West, at Barnsley Metrodome, after he was able to defeat amateur Keegan Brown in their deciding encounter.
Former World Masters Champion was also able to cruise in his final match after overtaking other competitors, like Stuart White, Danny Summers, Chris Mason, Tony Wood and Liam Kelly.
He was able to maintain his winning streak in his last game after knocking out Wood, 6-4.
"I'm over the moon”, said West."It's been an amazing couple of weeks for me because I lost my darts before playing at Lakeside and I've not been able to settle with a set since then”.
Unlike West, his other major contender, Whittingham, has experience in playing for PDC ProTour and also PDC Unicorn Youth Tour, for which he played in recent years.
This experience came in handy at the time when he was standing on the oche against Northamptonshire's Matthew Edgar.
His 6-4 victory against Edgar testifies that he has developed the potential and has the required skill to compete as a professional darts player now.
He said, "I've put in a lot of hard work in the past few years and this means a lot to me. Winning a Tour Card takes the pressure off you because you're guaranteed a place in all the ProTour events".
Apart from all this, it would be unjust if the accomplishments of Howson are sidelined.
His performance throughout the Qualifying session has been regarded as extremely consistent and exceptional in various ways by the experts of the sport.
He has also been enjoying a constant winning streak after he was able to defeat Chris Dale, Colin Monk, Terry Rose, Gino Vos and Nick Fullwell before meeting Dutch amateur Michels to have an easy grasp on his Tour Card.
The PDC event also provided a brilliant opportunity to Andrew Cornwall from Blackburn to showcase his darts skills in the Qualifying round.
The owner of LED Company has been able to strengthen his position in the PDC after defeating Gareth Cousins, Michael Peel, Jamie Atkins, South Africa's Yoshan Roxy Iyer and Southport's Andrew Johnson.
With the entry of new players in the game, the competition and its intensity is anticipated to rise unprecedentedly.
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