Daryl Gurney was cruelly denied a heroic come-from-behind victory at the PDC World Championship, as Johnny Clayton stemmed the tide to claim the decisive set and win 4-3.
An entertaining opening set saw Gurney with the chance to take the set. A costly miss on double 16 cost the Derry man however, with Clayton claiming the set courtesy of a checkout on double nine with his third and final dart.
Clayton, ranked number seven in the world, was more comfortable in the second set, winning three legs to one. His checkout in the final leg was a phenomenal 160, with two inch perfect treble 20s followed by double tops.
And the Welshman grew more dominant, whitewashing a frustrated Gurney in the third set, seizing a tidy 120 checkout along the way.
‘Superchin’ managed to channel that frustration as he attempted to mount a comeback. In a best of seven affair he had left himself with no room for error, and an impressive average of 102 in the fourth set saw him claw the match back to 3-1.
Clayton had been earmarked as the favourite, but with Gurney having beaten ‘The Ferret’ in three of their previous five clashes, he grew in confidence. A double 18 checkout left him just a leg short of a whitewash himself in the fifth set, which he duly managed with a double eight.
The comeback was well under way at this stage, and the Derry man went two legs up in the sixth set as he reined in his faltering opponent.
Gurney had reached this stage with a win over Florian Hempel, and he was breaking into the kind of form that saw him make a PDC World Championship quarter-final back in 2021.
A ropey showing from both men saw them fail to checkout with three darts each at double tops, with Gurney getting back to the oche to claim an equalising set to tee it up nicely at 3-3.
But it was the Welshman who seized the all important deciding set. Having been under the pump for the previous three sets, Clayton stormed back to win the seventh.
It was a devastating defeat for Gurney, who missed six darts to force a tie break, although his refusal to wave the white flag will bring him some solace.
Clayton, who defeated Mickey Mansell from Clonoe, Co Tyrone in the previous round, advances to the fourth round and the last sixteen, with those ties commencing on December 30.
Earlier today, Damon Heta kicked off the resumption of the World Championship in style by throwing a nine-darter.
The Australian achieved darting perfection in the second set of his third round match with Luke Woodhouse to earn a cool £60,000 payday.
Heta was millimetres away from throwing a nine-darter in the previous round when he missed the double 12, but he made no mistake this time in the first match after the Christmas break.
He followed up successive 180s with a treble 20 and treble 19 before sending his ninth dart the right side of the wire.
Heta’s feat was the second time a nine-darter has been thrown in the 2025 tournament and the 16th of all time at the World Championship, following Christian Kist’s effort before Christmas.
Woodhouse took his opponent’s achievement in good spirits, hugging the Australian and raising his arm in the air.