Steve Beaton’s Blog

Can you believe it’s February already and  the 2012 darting season well on the way.

Firstly Congratulations to England on winning the World Cup, well done Phil Taylor & Adrian  Lewis, you did your country proud.
Unlucky Australia being pipped at the post. It was a great final, brilliant television and what an ending to a tournament that provided us with unlimited entertainment that brought the world together and has left us with so many memories.

Apologies for being a little late with the rest of  this posting.

My knee is coming on well now but still swells and aches when I am on it for too long but am keeping up with my exercises and still attending physio.

My Congratulations to Adrian Lewis on retaining his Ladbrokes World Championship title beating Andy Hamilton in the final.  He played some awesome darts  throughout the tournament and what a fantastic tournament it was. Superb darts, consistent high standard throughout, with so many close nail biting games keeping  everyone on the edge of their seats.

I was commentating for Eurosport on the Lakeside World Championships again this year and my Congratulations to Anastasia Dobromyslova and Christian Kist for taking the 2012 World titles.

My wife and I then travelled to Lanzarote in the Canaries for a well earned break.  I did have to leave Nanette for three days, to play in the first two  pro tour events of the year in Benidorm.  I left her basking in 25 degrees and stepped off the plane at Valencia airport to rain and 11  degrees max.

I had hired a car and continued my journey to the Melia Hotel, Benidorm arriving at 1.30am on the Saturday morning. I was shattered so went straight to bed.

After a few hours sleep I had my weetabix for breakfast, setting me up for the day ahead for the first of the two Spanish pro tour events.

150 entries and I made it to the last 16.

I was drawn out on board 16 and my first opponent was Jamie Lewis, a 20 year old from Cardigan in Wales. Jamie had come through day four of the qualifying school and has just turned professional. I beat Jamie 6-1 but wish  him all the best for the future, in my second round I was up against Kim Huybrechts who had such a good run in the World Championships.  It was a stage game and I  put in a  brilliant performance beating him 6-0 and  then a very tough third round game against Andy Hamilton with me just coming out on top 6-5. I then lost 6-5 to Paul Nicholson in another close encounter which  could have gone either way.

Paul made it to the final but lost to Justin Pipe, who took his fourth ranking title and the first pro tour of 2012.

Well done Ian White for hitting a nine dart finish in his first round game.

On the Sunday I defeated David Jimineg 6-0 in the first round, Keith Stephen 6-4 in the second, then lost  in the last 32 to Peter Wright 6-5.

Michael Smith claimed victory over Justin Pipe in the final, his second ranking title.

Congratulations to both Justin & Michael.

With all the new faces from the qualifying school and Ted Hankey accepting his offer of a tour card, it should be a very interesting and exciting year on the PDC circuit.

I  haven’t made too bad a start and am really looking forward to the year ahead.

The McCoy’s Premier League kicks off in Manchester this week, GOOD LUCK to all the players.

More great darts to watch on Thursday evenings on Sky Sports for all you darting fans. I will be enjoying it and hopefully one day I will be part of it.

Happy Darting

Steve