Cameron Menzies defeated Stephen Bunting 8-4 in Leicester to win Players Championship 29; Callan Rydz, Ricardo Pietreczko and Chris Landman all recorded nine-dart finishes during the event; watch the Grand Slam of Darts live from November 9-17 on Sky Sports
Wednesday 30 October 2024 21:05, UK
Cameron Menzies clinched his maiden PDC ranking title with victory in Wednesday's Players Championship 29, beating Stephen Bunting 8-4 in Leicester.
Menzies has been one of the sport's stand-out performers throughout the last six months, and he underlined his progress by capturing the £15,000 top prize at the Mattioli Arena.
The Scot defeated six televised title winners - including Rob Cross and James Wade - on his way to glory in the East Midlands, which lifts him into the top 10 on the Players Championship Order of Merit.
"I've won a ProTour, and nobody can ever take that away from me," reflected an emotional Menzies, a runner-up at Players Championship 19 in August. "I wanted to win this title so much; I'm absolutely buzzing. This means so much to me."
Menzies - having seen off Jose de Sousa and Jacques Labre in the early rounds - produced his performance of the day in his third-round victory against Cross, averaging 107 on his way to a 6-3 success over the 2018 world champion.
He came through a last-leg decider against Krzysztof Ratajski in the last 16, recovering from 5-3 down to triumph, then backed up his win with a comprehensive 6-2 win over Wade in the quarter-finals.
A 7-1 demolition of Danny Noppert maintained his charge and booked his spot in the final, where he converted back-to-back 78 and 86 checkouts before Bunting responded with a blistering burst of his own.
Bunting missed double 12 for a nine-darter in leg five, which would have been the fourth recorded of the day, but legs of 11 and 12 darts saw him level at three apiece before Menzies replied with another three-leg blitz to lead 6-3.
The Masters champion reduced the arrears with a clinical 120 kill in leg 10, only for Menzies to keep his cool in the closing legs to cap off a landmark day in his darting career.
"At one stage I never thought I was good enough to win a ProTour, but I believe right now I'm playing the best darts of my life," Menzies added. "I'm playing against the best players in the world here, and I feel when I'm on my game, I can match them, and I never thought I'd be able to do that.
"Hopefully this is a stepping stone to winning a major [title], like Ritchie [Edhouse] and Mike De Decker have done recently."
Bunting is still searching for an elusive first ProTour title of 2024, following his sixth runner-up finish of the year. The 39-year-old had dispatched World Grand Prix champion De Decker 6-1 in the last 16, edged out Damon Heta in the last eight and swept aside Chris Landman 7-2 in the semi-finals.
Landman moved into the provisional World Championship qualification places with his run to the last four, which included a nine-dart finish in his fourth-round success against Ross Smith.
The Dutchman also accounted for Florian Hempel and Mensur Suljovic in reaching the semi-finals, where he was joined by his compatriot Noppert - also a semi-finalist at the European Championship last weekend.
Noppert won through a deciding-leg thriller against Michael Smith in the last eight, as the world No 2 made up the quarter-final line-up alongside Wade, Heta and Suljovic.
Elsewhere, Callan Rydz and Ricardo Pietreczko joined Landman in landing nine-darters on an action-packed day in Leicester, achieving perfection in wins over Keane Barry and Radek Szaganski respectively.
The 2024 PDC ProTour season will conclude with Players Championship 30 on Thursday, as the race to qualify for next month's Ladbrokes Players Championship Finals reaches its climax.
Live darts returns to Sky Sports with the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton from November 9-17, as Luke Humphries looks to defend his title with Luke Littler and Beau Greaves also in action.
Attention then turns to the turn of the year and the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship, beginning on December 15, as the darts calendar continues to provide excitement throughout the year - and you can enjoy the very best here live on Sky Sports.
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