Steve Alker has cooked Denis Ovens' goose at Purfleet's Circus Tavern to reach the PDC World Championship third round in style. The Welshman, known as "The Snakeman" for the three pythons he keeps at his home near Llanelli, won 4-1 to cause the latest upset in a tournament full of shocks.
Such has been the number of surprise results that one unseeded player - either Alker, his next opponent Wayne Jones, Gary Welding or John Kuczynski - is guaranteed a semifinal place.
The ninth seed Ovens, "The Heat", was never competitive and won only one of the first seven legs on the way to going three sets down. There was little wrong with his scoring for he hit six maximum scores of 180, but the Stevenage builder's finishing was disappointing.
Alker produced a fine performance and he shrugged off the fourth set loss to go within one leg of victory with a 133 check-out that left Ovens shaking his head, and then closed it out on double 12.
After his success in the first match of the 500,000 ($1.2 million) event eight days ago, Alker had deliberated whether to spend his prizemoney on a 4m yellow anaconda or a fishing boat, but with his earnings now up to at least 8500 he has changed his mind.
"I'm going to use the money to pay for my wedding now," said Alker. "Denis didn't play anywhere near as well as he can today, he let me in and I finished well."
The 12th seed Mark Walsh turned in an abject display to succumb to a 4-0 drubbing against Dennis Smith. Walsh, runner-up in this year's UK Open, is one of the most improved players in the game, but struggled as the world No 21 Smith proved accurate on the double-top to secure a meeting with Peter Manley.
The fourth seed Roland Scholten was always in command against German No 1 Tomas Seyler and emerged a 4-2 winner.
The lanky Dutchman, known as the "Tripod", began with a 180 in a 12-dart leg but his lack of consistency disappointed him.
"I wasn't happy with how I played," admitted Scholten, last year's UK Open champion. "I eased up here and there and I should have kept pounding the treble 20 and been more focused."
Welding has produced some of the best darts of the championship, but insists he must improve to progress further. The qualifier from St Helens beat the top seed Colin Lloyd in his opening match and again shone as he reached the third round with a 4-1 win over Dutch youngster Erwin Extercatte.
The two performances were very similar, Welding needing a couple of sets to get going before finding form that any top player - including 12-times world champion Phil Taylor - would be proud of, pushing his three-dart average up to the magical 100 mark.
But when he comes face to face with the American No 1 John Kuczynski in the last 16, the world No 52 knows he will have to overcome the tension that affected him against Extercatte.
"I was a bag of nerves at the start," said Welding, who had to come through a 150-man scramble in Hull to book his place in the tournament.
"My hand could not stop shaking and it was not like that against Colin Lloyd. Maybe it was because I was favourite to beat Extercatte - I have never been a favourite before.
"I hope I can buck up for my next match. John Kuczynski is playing brilliantly so I will have to play better to beat him."
- INDEPENDENT
Sport
Darts: Snakeman cooks Ovens' goose
Steve Alker
