Adams out to prove he^s still the Master
MARTIN Adams does not want to hand back the Winmau World Masters crown.
The darting legend from Market Deeping defends his title at the Spa in Bridlington this weekend and is in no mood to relinquish it.
^Wolfie^ Adams ended a near 20-year wait for the second most prestigious crown in the British Darts Organisation (BDO) side of the sport and pocketed a cool £25,000 when striking gold last year. He got his hands on the trophy with a 7-6 final victory over Scott Waites.
"It was a great weekend and a wonderful experience to win the title for the first time," said Adams. "I am ready to defend it and hopefully I will win it again.
"I have been practicing hard of late and things have been going well, but you can never really gauge too much from how you are throwing in practice.
"It is all down to who performs on the day and hopefully my experience will help me correct anything that goes wrong."
Adams is among the top eight seeds who enter the competition at the last 16 stage when the BBC begin television coverage. The tournament is actually being staged in September rather than much later in the year to suit the broadcaster.
Adams will arrive at the Yorkshire coast in upbeat mood after capturing three titles in the past few months. He got his hand on the British Pentathlon crown for the eighth time, won the BDO Gold Cup pairs with fellow local thrower Paul Crawford and then returned to singles action in style to win the IDPA Lakeside Classic the following day.
Adams added: "It has been a pretty good year and I^ve managed to win the odd title. There have been one or two open events where things haven^t gone as well as I would have liked, but you can^t read too much into losing a best-of-five match."
The Masters signals the start of a busy period for Adams.
He will line up in the British Open in a fortnight before heading across the Atlantic to do battle in the World Cup in America the following week.
Adams skippers a strong British side featuring World Championship runner-up Tony O^Shea, Scott Waites and Darryl Fitton. They are the top four players in the world rankings and Adams expects them to shine on the other side of the pond.
He insisted: "We are all looking forward to going out to America and we certainly have the team to win it."
Adams^ doubles partner Crawford is also in the Masters field for the second successive year. He faces Kenyan thrower Helson Orandi Nyakundi in his opening match.
Crawford is keen to emulate his performance last year when he was beaten in a board final by Stephen Bunting and fell one round short of the televised stages.
Story By: Peterborough Today