Dave Ladley’s PDC Diary from the Tour

Saturday 6th March 2010, Players Championship - Germany

I met up with the "Ladders Overseas fan-club" who had matching shirts on with those words written across them! Great guys who are all in the forces doing a great job!
I had the unfortunate draw of Justin Pipe in a preliminary game.

It is unfortunate because of Justins shear great ability to play the game.

There were much easier draws but I still quite fancied my chances.
Justin won the bull and had a great first leg and I hit back straight away with a 13 dart leg.

The standard of this game was very high and Justin won 6-1 with me only having 2 shots at the bull during the game for 2 of the legs.

One game in particular with me sitting on 170 after 9 darts and seeing Justin finish in 12 darts was a good example of how the match was going!
Justin said after the game that he felt the match was more like a 6-5 than a 6-1 result which shows I was pushing him but obviously not hard enough!
The event was won by Vincent Van Der Voort who beat Wayne Jones in the final.

Sunday 7th March 2010, Players Championship - Germany.
Again I was drawn in a preliminary match but this time against Dennis Smith.

Dennis has a similar precise action to Justin and was also similar in standard!
Dennis won the bull and took the first leg in 14 darts and I responded by setting off with 180,134 in the second leg and was feeling comfortable sitting on 86 with Dennis on 256 but a maximum from Dennis altered this and with 2 darts missed at double 16 up stepped Dennis with 20,16 and tops for 2-0!
The game followed this plan until I was 4-0 down!

I had not thrown badly at all so needed to keep pushing to take something from the match!

I won the next leg but alas, this was the last one I won as Dennis wrapped up the match 6-1!
Games usually have a point where they are changed and this game was done in the 2nd leg. I must get better at punishing this and getting over it when its happened to me!
The event was won by Adrian Lewis who beat Mark Walsh in the final.

Positives from the weekend
Very hard looking for positives when you have been beaten both days very early on but........I felt my form was definately there from last week but unable to get into the full flow of things with 2 hard games!

Quotes going forward
"My form is there so keep with positive attitude and push into next weeks players champs and UK open Qualifier in Wigan"
"I will not dwell on a loss but will dwell on my performance"

Thanks for reading,
Dave Ladley