Monday 16 January 2012

Kist beats O'Shea to win title

Christian Kist completed a remarkable Lakeside debut by beating Tony O'Shea to take the BDO world title.
Qualifier Kist, a road worker from the Netherlands, entered the tournament as a rank outsider.
But the 25-year-old defeated O'Shea 7-5 in a thrilling final to win the £100,000 prize, reported to be 50 times his career earnings to date.
"I was 6-2 in front and there was no problem and then Tony came back and the nerves came," Kist told BBC Sport.

WHO IS CHRISTIAN KIST?

  • Age: 25
  • Ranking: 74
  • Day job: Road worker
  • International debut: 2009
  • Achievements: Runner-up at 2011 Swiss Open, quarter finalist at 2011 Top of Ghent
During the tournament, Kist tore up the formbook, beating sixth seed and countryman Jan Dekker, Belgian Geert De Vos, England's Alan Norris and two-time world champion Ted Hankey.
In Sunday's final, Englishman O'Shea, known as "The Silverback", who lost 7-6 in a thrilling final against Ted Hankey in 2009, started brightly, reeling off the first three legs to take the first set as Kist struggled to hit the trebles.
But the Dutchman settled down to win the next two sets and take the lead in the best-of-13 match.
The fourth set went down to a deciding leg, with O'Shea holding his nerve to complete a 68 checkout to level the scores.
Kist won the fifth, which included a 12-dart checkout to take the first leg, and then also claimed the sixth set to lead 4-2 at the interval.

DID YOU KNOW?

Kist was ranked as the 13th-best player in Holland in 2011
After the break, Kist showed no signs of feeling the pressure as he secured the next two sets to move to within one of his maiden World Championship crown.
The Dutchman edged to within two legs of the title but O'Shea, who knocked out defending champion Martin Adams in the quarter-finals, stopped the rot by clawing back a set to reduce the deficit to three.
The momentum looked to have swung towards "The Silverback" as he won six straight legs to trail by just one set.
But Kist finally got a leg on the board and when O'Shea lost the penultimate leg after miscounting his checkout on 112, Kist seized back the momentum and hit the double 16 at the second time of asking for victory.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.