Tuesday 15 October 2019 21:42, UK
Peter Wright followed up his record-breaking showing on Monday by hammering Krzysztof Ratajski 8-1 to win the final event of the PDC Pro Tour season at Players Championship 30 in Barnsley.
Snakebite had stunned the darting world to beat Ratajski with a record average in a live broadcast match, but went on to lose to eventual winner Brendan Dolan in the semi-final; and while the Scot did not scale the heights on his 125.3 showing on Tuesday, he was too good for the Pole.
"It's been a great couple of days, I beat Krzysztof yesterday and today I wanted to try and beat him 8-0!" Wright said.
"He's a fantastic player and the past two days have been very tiring for both of us, so I'm happy to win. It was a hard day and to come through and take the title is brilliant.
"I'm looking forward to [the Champions League of Darts]. I lost to Gary [Anderson] in the final last year and he played fantastic. I beat MvG (Michael van Gerwen) in the semis and that took it out of me.
Trophy hunting MvG in the mood for more
"I approached the Champions League last year with a brand new set of darts and got to the final with them, but if I use these ones...
"The group I'm in, earlier in the season you'd say that wasn't a bad group because Daryl wasn't playing well, Gezzy wasn't and Rob wasn't quite on his game. Now, Rob's won the World Matchplay, Gezzy's playing fantastic and Daryl's not too shabby either. I'm the outsider and I'm not bad!"
Wright, beaten in the second round at the World Grand Prix in Dublin last week, claimed the £10,000 first prize and a third ProTour title of the year while Ratajski, winner of the Gibraltar Darts Trophy a couple of weeks ago suffers his second Players Championship final defeat to go with two titles.
Snakebite averaged over 104 against Ryan Searle, Steve West and Mark McGeeney in progressing to the latter stages. He also overcame Joe Murnan and Arron Monk before taking a 7-2 semi-final win over Danny Noppert.
Wright asserted his dominance immediately in the final, leading 3-0 before legs of 11 and 12 darts moved him five clear of the Polish number one. Ratajski hit back with a 14-darter, but Wright matched that in two of the next three legs to complete the win.
Tuesday's event was the last ProTour event of 2019, with the field for the Ladbrokes Players Championship Finals and provisional qualifiers for the William Hill World Darts Championship now set to be confirmed.
It was another impressive day's work for Ratajski who averaged almost 107 in a superb 7-5 semi-final win over Gerwyn Price, missing double 18 for a nine-darter in that contest, while he took the deciding leg of his quarter-final with Jermaine Wattimena with a ten-darter.
Price landed a nine-dart finish during his run to the semi-finals, achieving perfection in the second round against Jonathan Worsley, while Dutchman Noppert won through to his fourth Players Championship semi-final of the year, only to lose out to Wright.
Darts is back on your Sky Sports screens next month with the Grand Slam of Darts, nine days of coverage from the Aldersley Leisure Village gets underway on Saturday, November 9.
