2007 World Matchplay (darts)
| Stan James World Matchplay | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tournament information | |||
| Dates | July 22–28 | ||
| Venue | Winter Gardens | ||
| Location | Blackpool | ||
| Country | England | ||
| Organisation(s) | PDC | ||
| Format | Legs | ||
| Prize fund | £200,000 | ||
| Winners share | £50,000 | ||
| High checkout |
170  Kevin Painter
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| Champion(s) | |||
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James Wade
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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.
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.
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)
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)
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
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