Beating the booze was the key for Shropshire darter Ted Hankey as he made a winning start to his BDO World Championship challenge.
The Telford ace strolled to a 3-0 victory over Brian Woods, who had reached the semi-finals last year, at the Lakeside, Frimley Green.
No 7 seed Hankey, from Aqueduct, averaged 91.92 to set up a second round meeting with either Ross Montgomery or Martin Phillips – and then revealed his secret battle with the bottle. “I was drinking too much,” said the 2000 world champion, explaining why this was his first victory on a TV stage in more than 12 months.
“I believed I needed to drink a lot to get on stage, but I didn’t – I just needed to focus on my darts, like I did in 2000.
“I took my drinking to a different level really, I thought I needed to do that to control my nerves but it doesn’t work.
“I’ve changed my life, I’ve changed the way I play the game and hopefully I’ll have a chance (to be world champion) again.
“Hopefully, what I’m doing now will get me through to the final this week.”
Victory in his next match would see Hankey, 40, through to the quarter-finals for the third consecutive year.
His opponent in the last eight would be either defending champion Mark Webster or John ‘Boy’ Walton – who beat him in the final back in 2001.
One Comment
Ted Hankey`s own admission to drinking up to 13 pints of beer has been completely taken out of context and exaggerated by the media. He actually said he had drunk up to 13 pints before a match to settle his nerves. He realized this was too excessive so has cut back. He did`nt say he was battling an achohol problem! I know Ted Hankey personally, he has not got an achohol problem. A lot of professional dart players drink before a match for the same reasons as Ted – socially and to settle nerves ONLY. An achoholic wreck would not be able to participate in a world championship darts tournament over 10 days and win it.
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