Dates July 22–28 Location Blackpool Organisation(s) PDC | Venue Winter Gardens Country England Format Legs | |
The 2007 Stan James World Matchplay was the 14th annual staging of a professional darts tournament by the Professional Darts Corporation. It was held at its traditional home, the Winter Gardens, Blackpool between July 22 and July 29. James Wade won his first major title, defeating Terry Jenkins in the final.
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Defending and eight times champion, Phil Taylor suffered a semi-final defeat to Jenkins, meaning that he had surrendered both the World Championship and World Matchplay titles for the first time since the PDC began in 1994. Raymond van Barneveld, who went into this event having won the first three televised majors of the year (World Championship, UK Open and Las Vegas Desert Classic) saw his hopes of the first ever clean-sweep evaporate with a quarter-final defeat to Adrian Lewis. Barneveld was making his debut in the event having failed to qualify in 2006.
Both Lewis and Jenkins suffered hangovers from their victories over the two favourites as they lost their next matches - with James Wade capitalising. He beat Lewis in the semi-final and Jenkins in the final. Wade became the youngest winner of a PDC televised title at the age of 24 and also rose to number three in the world rankings.
Prize fund
Winner: £50,000 Runner-Up: £20,000 Semi-finalists: £10,000 Quarter-finalists: £7,500 Last 16: £5,000 1st round losers: £2,500 Total: £200,000 Nine-dart jackpot: £10,000 - not won, becomes £15,000 for World Grand PrixDraw
Scores after player's names are three-dart averages (total points scored divided by darts thrown and multiplied by 3)
All games had to be won by 2 clear legs (e.g. in Rd 1 there could not be a 10-9 scoreline it had to be 11-9 or 10-8)
Television coverage
Sky Sports broadcast the event live in the UK & Ireland for the 14th year running. The final between Wade & Jenkins achieved viewing figures of 183,000 - although that was surpassed by the quarter finals on Thursday (188,000) and the semi-finals on Friday received the highest viewing figures with 240,000 (the third highest-rated programme on Sky Sports 1 for that week)
Tournament review
Two of the first night's matches went to the tie-break as Kevin Painter fought back from 4-6 down to edge Adrian Gray 12-10. Adrian Lewis hit five 180s and five ton-plus finishes in his first round win over Mark Dudbridge and the other tie-breaker had Chris Mason missing a dart at the bullseye and two at double-eight for the match before losing 11-13 to Roland Scholten
Afternoon wins for Terry Jenkins, Ronnie Baxter and John Part were followed by Barrie Bates battling the symptoms of gout to overcome Andy Smith 10-8. The evening session saw Dennis Priestley beat rising talent Colin Osborne before Michael van Gerwen beat Peter Manley in a tie-break 11-9 having led 5-2 and 8-4. Phil Taylor won eight successive legs from 2-2 against Wes Newton to go through. Mervyn King beat the 2005 champion Colin Lloyd 10-4 with Lloyd having to hit three ton-plus finishes to stay in the match. "Jaws" now faces a slip down the world rankings as a result of losing ranking points from his title success of two years ago.
It wasn't until the third evening that World Champion Raymond van Barneveld appeared in the tournament - his debut in the World Matchplay having failed to qualify the previous year. A break of throw in the sixth leg against Denis Ovens saw van Barneveld edge clear and the rest of the match went with the throw as the Dutchman went through 10-7. The second round got underway with Roland Scholten racing to a 6-1 lead over Wayne Mardle with some clinical finishing - Mardle was unable to catch up and went out 6-13. Terry Jenkins continued his fine form coming from 4-5 behind to lead 9-6 against John Part and three of the next four legs put the Bull clear and he closed out the match 13-8.
The afternoon session saw James Wade sneak into the quarter-finals as Dennis Priestley missed a dart at double top to win 13-11. Wade himself missed 11 doubles to take the match before a double 10 sealed a 16-14 win. Mervyn King went through having won 10 out of 11 legs from 3-3 to beat Andy Jenkins 13-4. Ronnie Baxter was one leg from defeat to Michael van Gerwen at 10-12 but won four successive legs to beat the Dutch teenage sensation who missed an incredible seven darts to stay in the match in the decisive 26th leg.
The evening session went to the higher seeded players as Adrian Lewis, Raymond van Barneveld and Phil Taylor all progressed to the last eight.
Ronnie Baxter almost produced another superb comeback in the first quarter-final against Terry Jenkins. He was 15-8 down in a race to 16, but took five successive legs to be within striking distance before Jenkins stumbled over the line 16-13. James Wade broke Mervyn King's throw in the sixth leg, then led 7-3 and 9-6 and always stayed in front to reach the semi-final 16-11.
Adrian Lewis produced a major shock knocking out world champion Raymond van Barneveld in the first evening quarter-final. Van Barneveld was 8-5 and 12-11 up but Lewis roared on by the crowd took five of the last seven legs to win 16-14. Phil Taylor was last on stage and stormed past Roland Scholten taking the first eight legs before Scholten got on the scoreboard. Taylor then took another eight successive legs to win 16-1, the most comprehensive quarter-final win in the history of the tournament.
Terry Jenkins beat Phil Taylor to set up a final with James Wade. Jenkins was in superb form en route to a 17-11 victory in a match where Taylor was heavily booed during his walk on, to record his first ever victory over "The power". his first ever against the 13-time world champion. Earlier Wade clinched his place in the final in Blackpool with a clinical demolition of Adrian Lewis. Wade hit 70 per cent of his checkouts, including four of over 100, as Lewis failed to build on Thursday's thrilling quarter-final win over Raymond van Barneveld. Eight successive legs sealed it for Wade, who hoped to go one better than last year when he was vanquished by Taylor in the final.
A new name on the trophy was guaranteed and James Wade took a 6-1 lead early on in the race for the title. Terry Jenkins was never able to reach the heights of his semi-final win over Phil Taylor but never gave up including a 120 finish to fight back to 7-15 but that was to be his last leg victory as Wade took the title with a double top for an 18-7 win and his first televised tournament success.