Peter Wright (Picture: Lawrence Lustig)

Darts results: Peter Wright beats Michael van Gerwen before claiming Autumn Series title

By Sporting Life

Darts

Sat September 12, 2020 · 4y ago

Peter Wright edged out Michael van Gerwen in a gripping semi-final on his way to victory in Saturday's Autumn Series event.

The world champion showed his class in a brilliant day of darts as he claimed a second successive Players Championship title, following his win on the final day of July's Summer Series.

Wright averaged almost 100 in each of his first five matches, including wins over recent World Matchplay champion Dimitri Van den Bergh and Premier League leader Glen Durrant.

He had also seen off Callan Rydz, Graham Usher and Boris Krcmar before producing his highest average of the day at 109 in a thrilling semi-final with van Gerwen.

Van Gerwen had opened up a 5-2 lead with some superb darts of his own, with the pair averaging 113 in mid-game before Wright surged back to take a 7-6 victory.

The final against Latvia's Madars Razma proved more comfortable as Wright punished some early missed doubles from his opponent to open up a 4-0 lead.

Razma hit back in leg five, but Wright won the next four without reply to seal the £10,000 top prize.

"I felt confident coming here but it was very hard work today," said Wright. "I've won one and let's see what tomorrow brings.

"Obviously the Premier League has helped me, playing day after day against the best players in the world.

"I had to play well against Michael and had a really good game there - there was a bit of the old Michael back, which is good to see.

"It was nice to see him playing some superb darts. He let me in, he had two or three bad scores which I jumped on. It's the best I've seen him play for a long time."

Razma enjoyed a run to his second PDC ranking final, having previously been a runner-up in September 2018, with his best display of 2020.

The Latvian ace defeated Steve Lennon, Dirk van Duijvenbode, Ian White, Karel Sedlacek, Jelle Klaasen and Devon Petersen on his way to the final - edging past the latter 7-6 in another exciting semi-final.

Petersen produced some outstanding darts during his run to a third semi-final of 2020, including a 107.6 average as he defeated world number three Gerwyn Price.

He also averaged 93 or better in his wins over Kai Fan Leung, Andre Gilding, Simon Whitlock and Jesus Noguera, but paid for missing one dart at the bullseye to win the deciding leg of his exciting semi-final with Razma.

World number one van Gerwen also produced a string of consistent displays, seeing off Krzysztof Kciuk, Luke Humphries, Stephen Bunting, Wiliam Borland and Krzysztof Ratajski, before seeing a 5-2 lead slip away against Wright in the last four.

Spain's Noguera enjoyed his best run since joining the PDC ProTour full-time as he won through to the quarter-finals, defeating Steve Beaton, Ross Smith, Mensur Suljovic and Scott Waites before being edged out by Petersen.

Ratajski, Durrant and Jelle Klaasen joined Noguera in the last eight, while Carl Wilkinson enjoyed a moment of perfection with a nine-darter during his first round tie with Joe Cullen, who went on to take a narrow 6-5 win.