World Champion! Peter Wright back at the darts summit

The 51-year-old veteran with the nickname “Snakebite” defeated the Englishman Michael Smith 7:5 on Monday evening and thus secured the biggest title of the year again after 2020. The always colorfully dressed and coiffed Wright won prize money of 500 pounds (around 000 euros) and the Sid Waddell Trophy, which weighs around 595 kilograms, in London. Wright remains number two in the world rankings, but is moving very close to Primus Gerwyn Price from Wales and could soon become number one himself for the first time.

In the past twelve months, Wright has earned more than twice as much prize money as all of his opponents. The Scottish unique had previously also won the World Matchplay as the second most important tournament in the world and the Team World Cup together with John Henderson. The trickiest World Cup game before the final was probably the quarter-final against England's Callan Rydz, when Wright won with great effort 5-4.

Michael Smith lost a World Cup final for the second time. © APA/afp / ADRIAN DENNIS

“Bully Boy” Smith also lost the second World Cup final after 2019 - back then he lost to the Dutchman Michael van Gerwen 3:7. The 31-year-old Smith had previously shone at this World Cup and with his top performances took the two favorites Price and Jonny Clayton (also Wales) out of the tournament. Smith is still waiting for his first major title and has already lost many important finals. In the end, the fact that the audience in the packed Alexandra Palace stuck by him wasn't enough for the local hero. A very exciting World Cup final The final of a high-class tournament, which, in addition to some world-class matches, was also characterized by Corona chaos and the resulting game cancellations, started with many errors. In the first set, Wright and Smith threw a ridiculous number of arrows past the doubles. In the meantime, both world-class players had a quota in the single-digit percentage range. Smith seemed generally unsteady and initially made a few mistakes.

From the third set onwards the match became significantly more valuable. Smith suddenly hit the triple fields like in the previous rounds and after four sets had already played eleven shots with the highest score of 180. Experienced Wright, on the other hand, changed darts again during the encounter, but left significantly more chances at the beginning than the day before in a 6:4 win against compatriot Gary Anderson.

The longer the game lasted, the more exciting it became. The slight final outsider Smith turned a 0-2 deficit into a 4-3 lead and looked more confident from set to set. After that, Wright improved again. It turned into a duel of equals and the most exciting World Cup final in years. In the end there were well over 35 shots with a maximum of 180 points.

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World Champion! Peter Wright back at the darts summit

Scotland's darts star Peter Wright has crowned his fantastic season and is world champion for the second time.

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