World No 1 Michael van Gerwen was eliminated from the Auckland Darts Masters tonight, falling to James Wade 10-6 as the crowd at Trusts Arena were treated to some superb darts.
Proclaimed to be the best night of World Series Darts ever by commentator Stuart Pyke, Auckland darts fans witnesseda clinical performance by Wade as the Englishman averaged 107 en-route to knocking out van Gerwen.
Wade raced to a 4-1 lead, clinically hitting his doubles, but the furious scoring of van Gerwen eventually paid off, getting to within one leg of Wade. But it was The Machine's night as he powered home to win.
Earlier in the night in a 19-set thriller, defending Auckland Masters champion Adrian Lewis held off Phil Taylor, despite The Power finishing the match with a 107 average.
The first leg set the tone with Lewis holding his throw on an 11-dart leg, overcoming Taylor's seven perfect darts. When Lewis finished on 124 to break the throw of Taylor in the 14th leg to go up 9-7, it looked as though Lewis had a clear path to the semifinals but Taylor, in classic fashion, immediately broke Lewis and then checked-out on 130 to take the match to a deciding leg.
With the throw advantage, Lewis held on despite missing three match darts, to keep his hopes of defending his Auckland Darts Masters crown alive.
Raymond van Barneveld booked himself a semifinal berth, seeing out Dave Chisnall 10-5.
In the other quarter-final, Gary Anderson won the battle of the Scots as he held off a late Peter Wright comeback to win 10-6 and book a meeting with van Barneveld in Sunday's semifinals.
