Hankey’s hopes hang in balance
Monday 16th November 2009, 1:14PM GMT.
The Grand Slam of Darts hopes of Shropshire’s Ted Hankey go on the line tonight.
Telford’s BDO world champion and No 2 seed suffered a shock 5-3 defeat to Scott Waites at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall yesterday afternoon.
Hankey faces his second of three round robin matches tonight and must beat Wayne Mardle – who was also beaten in his opening game – to stand any realistic chance of progressing to the last 16.
The tournament brings together the leading players from the sport’s two rival organisations – the PDC and BDO.
But Hankey – who has previously been involved with angry exchanges with spectators – never settled in losing to BDO rival Waites, and at one stage hit out at jeers from the crowd.
Waites had led the game 4-1 but missed a total of 13 darts to win the match before stumbling over the line.
Elsewhere, Anastasia Dobromyslova injected girl power into the PartyPoker.com-backed event with a sensational 5-4 victory over Vincent van der Voort.
The 25-year-old Russian produced the biggest ever win by a woman in a televised contest and now faces a winner takes all clash with Welshman Mark Webster tomorrow night.
Two successive 5-0 wins have seen 14-times world champion Phil Taylor head through to the knockout stages, while Raymond van Barneveld has also won both his matches.
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