Debutant Jonny Clayton tops the Unibet Premier League table heading into the first mid-season break after he claimed a 7-4 win over Gary Anderson in Milton Keynes on Friday.<\/p>\n
Clayton’s dream start to his maiden Premier League campaign continued as he averaged just under 100 to go a point clear of four players at the summit on seven points.<\/p>\n
The Welshman fired in six 180s and took advantage of ten missed double attempts from Anderson to end the first block of league action on a high.<\/p>\n
“You dream of having a start like this for a first attempt in such a big tournament, I’m one happy Welshman,” said a delighted Clayton, who hit a nine-darter on Night Three.<\/p>\n
“Gary has always been one of my favourite players, I love the way he plays, so to beat him on a stage like this is a dream come true.<\/p>\n
“The game was played at some pace, by the time I’d had a sip of water it was already my turn to throw. It was maybe a little bit quick for me but it didn’t do me too much harm.”<\/p>\n
Last year’s runner-up Nathan Aspinall produced a stellar 105.38 average in a 6-6 draw with Michael van Gerwen, but was left relieved at the end of the match after the Dutchman missed a match dart.<\/p>\n
Five-time Premier League champion Van Gerwen was looking to bounce back from defeat to James Wade on Night Four, but was unable to break down a resurgent Aspinall.<\/p>\n
Having pinned checkouts of 148 and 100, Van Gerwen led 6-5 and earned himself one dart at double top for the match.<\/p>\n
Van Gerwen dropped low with his attempt, but Aspinall made no mistake on the same target with his last dart in hand to wrap up a 68 checkout for the match.<\/p>\n
“I’m very happy to get a point,” said Aspinall. “For me he’s the best player in the world so to get any result against Michael is always a positive.<\/p>\n
“I’ve had a great week, if I’d been offered six points from the first ten available I would’ve taken that.<\/p>\n
“I’m getting better with every night, I’m feeling more and more confident and I’m looking forward to coming back refreshed.”<\/p>\n
For the second successive evening, Jose de Sousa produced the performance of the night in claiming his first Premier League victory over Dimitri Van den Bergh, running out a 7-3 victor.<\/p>\n
Having landed a nine-darter on Night Four, De Sousa rattled in six trademark 180s but improved accuracy on the outer ring saw him hit 50 per cent of his checkout attempts to claim a valuable two points, inflicting a first defeat of the season on the Belgian.<\/p>\n
Peter Wright extended his unbeaten run to three matches as he recovered from 5-3 down to claim a 7-5 victory over Rob Cross, seeing the 2020 World Champion join Van den Bergh, Aspinall and Van Gerwen on six points.<\/p>\n
A change of darts didn’t seem to be working for Wright in the early stages, but he found a way to win the final four legs without reply to leapfrog Cross in the league standings.<\/p>\n
2009 champion Wade backed up his defeat of Van Gerwen on Night Four with a comfortable 7-3 success over Glen Durrant.<\/p>\n
The UK Open winner was on target with 50% of his checkout attempts – including a 152 finish – to deny a route into the contest for defending champion Durrant, who appears destined for an early elimination following five straight losses.<\/p>\n
The tournament will resume from April 19-22, as league phase Nights Six-Nine take place, with the bottom two players eliminated on Judgement Night while the remaining eight are left to battle it out for Play-Off spots.<\/p>\n
2021 Unibet Premier League Debutant Jonny Clayton tops the Unibet Premier League table heading into the first mid-season break after he claimed a 7-4…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124],"tags":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"de":3110,"en":3107},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3109,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3107\/revisions\/3109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdc.fw-web.space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNight Five
\nFriday April 9<\/strong>
\nGary Anderson 4-7 Jonny Clayton
\nPeter Wright 7-5 Rob Cross
\nMichael van Gerwen 6-6 Nathan Aspinall
\nJames Wade 7-3 Glen Durrant
\nDimitri Van den Bergh 3-7 Jose de Sousa <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"