Menzies makes his mark by winning Players Championship 29
Cameron Menzies (PDC Europe)
Cameron Menzies won his first PDC ranking title on Wednesday, beating Stephen Bunting 8-4 in the 29th round of the Players Championship in Leicester.
Menzies has been one of the standout players in the sport over the past six months and underlined his progress by winning the top prize of £15,000 at the Mattioli Arena. The enigmatic Scotsman beat six TV title winners on his way to glory in the East Midlands, propelling him into the top 10 of the Players Championship Order of Merit.
“I’ve won on the pro tour and no one can take that away from me,” said an emotional Menzies, who was runner-up at the Players Championship ’19 in August. “I’m just happy because I wanted to win this title so badly, it means a lot to me. “At one point I didn’t think I was good enough to win on the Pro Tour, but I believe I’m playing the best darts of my life.
“I’m here playing with the best players in the world and I feel like if I play my game I can match them, but I never thought I’d be able to do that. “Hopefully this will be the stepping stone to winning bigger titles like Richie (Edhouse) and Mike Decker did recently.
Menzies had his best performance of the day in his third round match against Rob Cross, averaging 107 points and beating the 2018 world champion 6-3. Having eliminated Jose de Sousa and Jacques Labouré earlier in the day, Menzies overcame 5-3 deficits to win the final against Krzysztof Ratajski in the round of 16.
The 35-year-old then comfortably beat James Wade 6-2 in the quarter-finals before beating Danny Noppert 7-1 to maintain his lead. Menzies then started well in Wednesday’s exhibition match, firing successive shots of 78 and 86 to put himself in a two-way tie, but Bunting
replied with some powerful strikes of his own. The Masters champion missed a nine-dart double 12 in the fifth round but drew three points behind with two darts in the 11th and 12th rounds before Menzies fought back with a three-dart blitz to lead 6-3. Bunting closed the gap with a clinical kill of 120 in the tenth round, but was unable to fight back in the closing stages, and Menzies kept his cool to cap off a historic day in his darts career.
Meanwhile, Bunting was outstanding in his sixth Players Championship final of the year, but is still on the road to his first ProTour title in 2024. The 39-year-old averaged 104 points in his first round win over Danny Loby, which was followed by impressive victories over Darryl Pilgrim and Connor Scutt respectively.
The St Helens star also beat World Grand Prix champion Mike De Decker 6-1 in the last 16, and after beating Damon Heta in the round of 16, he demolished Chris Landman 7-2 in the semi-finals. Landman rose through the World Championship preliminary qualifying ranks to reach the final four, including a nine-dart fourth-round finish against Ross Smith.
The Dutchman also beat Florian Hempel and Mensur Suljovic to reach the semi-finals, where he is joined by compatriot Danny Noppert, who reached the semi-finals at last weekend’s European Championships. Noppert won his quarter-final deciding match against Michael Smith, and the world number two is in the quarter-final line-up alongside Wade, Heta and Slujovic.
Others joining Landman include Callan Ridz and Ricardo Pietreco, who shot nine darts to achieve perfect results on a busy day in Leicester with wins over Keane Barry and Radek Saganski respectively. The 2024 PDC ProTour season will conclude on Thursday at The Players Championship 30 as the race to reach next month’s Ladbrokes Players Championship final reaches its climax.
The PDC Twitter feed will be updated throughout the day with details of upcoming matches on each of the four broadcast sites, with matches starting at 13:00 GMT.
