Burnham-On-Sea darts star Gary Anderson sealed his place in the last 16 of the World Championships last night (Monday) following a controversial match.
Gary stayed on course for his third World Championship title after coming through a tense match with Mensur Suljovic at Alexandra Palace, which was shown live on Sky Sports.
Gary hit out at his rival and even threatened to walk away from darts altogether after eventually coming through a war of attrition with a score of 4-3.
He looked visibly frustrated by his opponent’s mind game of playing a deliberately slow, methodical style for most of the match, which lasted 90 minutes. He also switched tables on the stage just before the game started.
Gary, who was the 2015 and 2016 world champion, showed plenty of grit to recover from 3-2 to beat Suljovic and advance to the last 16, despite missing 33 darts at the double.
Astonishing interview from a fuming Gary Anderson.
"I'm sure there are 90% of folk watching at home, they probably turned over and watched Corrie or something – I would have done."
"If that's darts…I'm offski."pic.twitter.com/JMrVWvDUC7
— Chris Hammer (@ChrisHammer180) December 28, 2020
In a heated post-match interview with Sky, above, he summed up his feelings: “Absolutely dire, absolute joke of a game. I’ve always wanted to play darts but when everyone asks why do I get cheesed off with darts, that’s one of the reasons. Absolute bull.”
Regarding Suljovic’s particularly slow style of play in the first half of the match, Anderson said: “Did you watch the last set? Or the third set? Was he slow then? No. I nicked at the end, I don’t know how but if that’s how darts is going then I’m offski – I’m away for a game of golf or something. I’m not going through that again.”
“I just want to play darts. Is that darts? Did you enjoy it because I didn’t. I’m sure there are 90% of folk watching at home, they probably turned over and watched Corrie or something – I would have done.”
“I just want to throw darts and if you get spanked, the boy’s been better than you and beaten you. Shake his hand and on you go. But come on, that’s a load of tripe.”
“You’re walking past the table you should be at, but you’ve got to cut across because the boy’s standing there. The next minute you go across he’s not there. What have you to do? My head was gone after the first set. I’d lost the plot.”
Anderson was also annoyed about the table situation on stage, saying: “For a start, we were told what tables we were on and I ended up on the wrong table for the duration of the game. I thought even Sky would have picked up on what table we should have been on and it could have been done right away. Obviously not. I had to bite the bullet and get on with it.”
Gary will now go on to face Jason Lowe or 29th seed Devon Petersen for a place in the quarter-finals.
