Hankey’s counted out of Slam

Thursday 19th November 2009, 3:26PM GMT.

Ted 'The Count' Hankey Shropshire darter Ted ‘The Count’ Hankey has crashed out of the Grand Slam of Darts at Wolverhampton.

The BDO world champion and No 2 seed was the highest profile casualty of the round-robin stages which completed last night.

Telford’s Hankey needed to beat Australian Simon Whitlock by a margin of 5-2 or better to keep alive his hopes in the tournament, and looked on course to do that when he led 3-0 and 4-1.

But he missed one dart for a 5-2 victory and Whitlock battled back, checking out 146 in the deciding leg to secure a 5-4 victory.

“When I was 3-0 up I thought I had him, but Simon played great darts to come back,” said Hankey.

“I had that one chance to win it when I missed double top but he was superb and that 146 finish was sensational.”

It meant Hankey won one and lost two of his three round-robin matches in a week where he was involved in a war of words with spectators at the Civic Hall.