Peter Wright leaned his head against the darts board in disbelief, then the touched Scottish world champion fought with his emotions.
The 51-year-old veteran with the nickname «Snakebite» defeated the Englishman Michael Smith 7: 5 and thus secured the biggest title of the year after 2020. The loser in the final Smith could hardly see the scenery, with tears in his eyes he turned away immediately after the painful defeat.
£ 500,000 in prize money
Wright, on the other hand, is back at the top and raised the coveted trophy with force. “I’m so happy. I did it, “said Wright, who was always brightly dressed and coiffed, who won a prize of 500,000 pounds (around 595,000 euros) and the 25-kilogram Sid Waddell Trophy in London. Wright remains number two in the world rankings, but is getting very close to Primus Gerwyn Price from Wales and could soon be the first in the rankings himself.
In the past twelve months, Wright has brought in more than twice as much prize money as any of the opponents. The Scottish one-off had previously won the World Matchplay, the second most important tournament in the world, as well as the Team World Cup together with John Henderson. The trickiest World Cup game before the final was probably the quarter-finals against England’s Callan Rydz, when Wright won with great difficulty 5-4.
Smith has to wait on
For “Bully Boy” Smith, the second World Cup final after 2019 was also lost – at that time he was defeated by Dutchman Michael van Gerwen 3: 7. The 31-year-old Smith had previously shone at this World Cup and with his top performances removed the two favorites Price and Jonny Clayton (also from Wales) from the tournament.
Smith is still waiting for his first major major title and has lost many important finals. The fact that the audience in the fully occupied Alexandra Palace stood by him wasn’t enough for the local hero in the end. “It’s Michael’s turn soon,” Wright promised in the following interview – the fans celebrated and sang about the loser Smith. This said: “I’ll get ready for the next attempt.”
Finale started with a few mistakes
The final of a high-class tournament, which, in addition to some world-class matches, was also characterized by the corona chaos and the resulting game cancellations, started with many mistakes. In the first sentence, Wright and Smith threw an insane number of arrows past the double. In the meantime, both world-class players had a quota in the single-digit percentage range. Smith looked generally nervous and initially made a few mistakes.
From the third set onwards, the match became much more valuable. Smith suddenly hit the triple fields as in the previous rounds and after four sets had already played eleven shots with the maximum number of points of 180. On the other hand, veteran Wright changed darts again during the encounter, but left significantly more chances at the beginning than the day before at 6: 4 against compatriot Gary Anderson.
The longer the game lasted, the more exciting it got. Slightly underdog Smith turned a 2-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead and looked more confident from set to set. After that, Wright improved again. A duel at eye level developed and the most exciting World Cup final in years. In the end it was well over 35 recordings with a maximum of 180 counters.