Pipe Takes Out Anderson In Close game

JUSTIN PIPE won his second successive Players Championship by edging out Gary Anderson in the John McEvoy Gold Dart Classic final in Killarney.

The 39-year-old from Taunton had won his first professional title at a Players Championship in Dublin a fortnight ago, defeating Phil Taylor in the final.

He added a second £6,000 first prize to his collection with a battling win over another of the world's top four players, Gary Anderson, to take the John McEvoy Gold Dart Classic Players Championship title from the Scot.

Having overcome local aces Jason Byrne and Kieran Keho and South Africa's Devon Petersen in the early stages, he was pushed all the way to a deciding leg by John Henderson and Paul Nicholson and had defeated Scott Rand 6-3 in the quarter-finals.

In the final, Pipe's regular practice partner Anderson edged into early 2-1 and 4-2 leads, and a 120 finish from the Scot put him a leg away from victory at 5-3.

However, Pipe hit back to level and then took the decider by hitting double top for a 58 finish with his third dart.

The defeat denied Anderson a tenth tournament victory of 2011, but the world number four picked up a further £3,000 prize money at the venue where he had emerged victorious a year ago.

Anderson began his day with a whitewash of John Bracken, and defeated Matt Padgett in round two before picking up a narrow 6-5 victory against fellow Scot Robert Thornton.

He then defeated Steve Beaton, Andy Hamilton and Mark Hylton to reach the final, only to fall a leg short of glory.

Hylton followed up last week's run to the quarter-finals of the PartyPoker.com World Grand Prix by reaching the semi-finals alongside Nicholson.

Hamilton reached the quarter-finals of a Players Championship for the first time in five months, while Wayne Jones was appearing in the last eight for the first time since June.

Coventry's Scott Rand reached the last eight for the sixth time on the PDC ProTour this year as he continues his emergence as a contender at the top level, with Simon Whitlock also amongst the quarter-finalists following his Championship League Darts Group Six success on Thursday.

Ian White, Matthew Edgar and Under-21 World Champion Arron Monk took a further step towards qualifying for the Ladbrokes World Darts Championship via the Players Championship Order of Merit by reaching the last 16.

The John McEvoy Gold Dart Classic Players Championship formed part of the Killarney Darts Festival, which was held at the Killarney Events Centre.

Holland's Michael van Gerwen had won Saturday's PDC Unicorn Youth Tour event, while Mark Walsh won the non-ranked Ladbrokes Irish Masters.