Wade 6 - Barneveld 2 in Players Championship

JAMES WADE took Players Championship glory for a second successive Saturday with a 6-2 win over Raymond van Barneveld in the Spanish Darts Trophy.

The world number three took first blood in the double-header weekend in Benidorm with the triumph, as he followed up last weekend's win in Germany with another £6,000 title.

Wade's triumph secures his place in December's Players Championship Finals in Doncaster, while van Barneveld also improved his qualification hopes by picking up £3,000 as runner-up.

The left-hander opened the day with a whitewash of Holland's Mareno Michels, and saw off Gary Welding, Colin Osborne, Mensur Suljovic to reach the quarter-finals, where he came from 5-4 down to defeat Mark Webster.

He also hit back from 2-0 and 3-2 behind to defeat Dave Chisnall 6-4 in a high-quality semi-final, hitting an 11-darter and finishes of 156 and 116 in booking a place in the decider.

Van Barneveld finished 104 to win the final's opening leg, but Wade hit tops to level and finished 128 to lead 2-1 before landing double top once more and taking out 125 to move 4-1 up.

Double 16 from van Barneveld saw him pull back leg six, but Wade took out double ten in the seventh leg and finished 81 for victory.

Van Barneveld's run to the final included his first victory over Phil Taylor since the 2008 UK Open as the Dutchman took a 6-5 semi-final triumph.

Taylor led 2-0 and 5-3, but missed double top for victory in three successive legs as van Barneveld battled back to win the decider by hitting the same bed which had thwarted his great rival.

Chisnall impressed by reaching the semi-finals, whitewashing World Champion Adrian Lewis and also defeating former World Championship finalists Simon Whitlock and Kirk Shepherd in claiming £2,000.

Lewis stepped up his bid to qualify for the Players Championship Finals by reaching the last 16, while Whitlock, Webster, Vincent van der Voort and Nigel Heydon were the losing quarter-finalists - with the latter pushing Phil Taylor all the way before succumbing to a 6-5 loss.

Sunday sees a second Players Championship of the weekend take place in the final European-based ProTour weekend of 2011.