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One Of The Few.

Vincent van Der Voort may well be very important to the Dutch darts world in his home country, but here in the UK he has always been just another darts pro. However, after this years Grand Slam at Wolverhampton Civic Hall, Vincent will go down in darts history along with a very select few who have actually beaten the greatest darts player that has ever lived. In the opening stages where all players compete in heats, before the knock out rounds, Vincent was beaten in a tight match by the young Russian beauty Anastasia Dobromyslova, who took the score-line to 4-4 before finally taking the last leg. I think most male darts professionals would feel that they had let themselves down if they were beaten by a woman and it has to be said he did not play well, but it seems that the Gods decided to smile on him when he played Phil Taylor two days later. Perhaps it was their way of "balancing the books" so that he would be forever remembered for a truly great darting achievement as well as one that he would rather forget.

Vincent van Der Voort led Phil Taylor 3-0 before taking the score to 4-0. Phil was scoring poorly with some scores as low as only 40 and in fact before the last leg was averaging only 87.5 whereas Vincent was averaging 94. For normal mortals these scores would be considered quite respectable, but not so for Phil who nearly always averages over 100 in any competition. The commentator was heard to say that, "Taylor looks almost human!"  In fact during the whole match Phil only hit 2 scores of 140.

It looked as though Phil might stage a spectacular comeback after finishing the fifth leg on 66 with a bull and then double 8 to make it 4-1. However, all that did was to spur Vincent on with a spectacular start of 180 followed by 140 in what proved to be the last leg.

These scores led to a possible 11 darter and with Phil left on 167 Vincent must have felt confident. However, Vincent missed and gave Phil a chance that only he could feel confident of getting. He got the 60 and 57, but missed the bull hitting the 25 instead enabling Vincent to take the match 5-1 for a win and go down in darting history as one of the few to beat the greatest darts player that has ever lived.