Hylton on a high as the Wizard shall not pass

There’s no doubt that the field has been becoming more and more open over recent times in the PDC, but this year’s Grand Prix really has taken the biscuit, as we see yet another big name fall to a lesser light on Thursday evening.

Performance of the Night

No one, including me, gave world number 38 Mark Hylton much chance against world number five Simon Whitlock going into their second round tie, but the plucky left-hander proved everyone wrong with a stunning 3-1 win.

What made the win all the more impressive was the way that the big Aussie started the contest, looking somewhere near his brilliant best in the opening set, winning it 3-1, and then winning the first leg of the second against the throw.

Mile High didn’t panic though and showed appropriate calm needed during the heavy turbulence, picking up on his scoring and capitalising on wayward finishing from Whitlock to win the last three sets by nine legs to four.

Hylton reached the quarters of the UK Open earlier in the year and this win will edge him further up the rankings, at least into 37^th ahead of Tony Eccles, and he will hope even further as he faces a lower ranked opponent in the semis, although we’ve seen that counts for little in Dublin.

As far as the Wizard is concerned, his wait for a major title continues, and to be honest, it seems a long while since he was even close to winning one.  There are some exceptional players not far behind him in the Order of Merit, and his top six spot will not be safe forever.

A close second

The Cinderella story continues for Richie Burnett as he reached the quarter-finals with another big win over the in-form Dennis Ovens (3-1). 

The term, “finding your form” could not be more appropriate than now for the Prince of Wales who was completely off the radar as far as tournament success went until last month when he won the Players Championship in Nuland and now finds himself in a major quarter-final.

Although this win won’t grab the headlines that beating Gary Anderson in round one did, it is still an impressive feat against a man that has been consistently successful for the last six months or so and even after this defeat will rise to 20^th in the world.

With an average of over 88 and both starting and finishing checkout success rates of over 40%, Burnett is where he is entirely on merit, and will fancy his chances of going even further as he takes on Hylton in the quarters.

Bronze Medal

Although it is no surprise to see Phil Taylor winning a match, sometimes the manner in which he does it still makes you sit up and take notice of how good a player he still is, and that was the case as he blew Paul Nicholson away 3-0.

There was a lot of talk before the match, all from Nicholson, but few doubted that Taylor would emerge victorious and he did so in fine style, hitting three ton-plus finishes and needing only 15 darts to secure his nine finishing doubles, dropping just three legs along the way.

The Asset is without doubt a fine player, but if he thinks he can talk his way to victory over the great man then he is sadly mistaken, and to be honest his antics on stage just made him look a bit silly.  He will win a major tournament in the future, but there’s a long way to go yet.

Fourth Spot

Not wanting to take anything away from Mark Webster’s 3-1 win over Alan Tabern, but it was a reasonably routine one and has to be down in fourth place for the night’s performances.

The Welshman played brilliantly at times as his trio of three figure out shots demonstrate, but unfortunately for Tabern, he was as poor as Webster was good, and an average of 76 is unlikely to trouble anyone.