Tuesday, 8 January 2013
Jersey Festival of darts.
After my return from a break to see family and friends in Russia and to celebrate my wins, It was back to business with the steel-tip and a trip to Jersey for their Festival of Darts.
This was a tournament that was very unique to the BDO ranking system as this offered two singles ranking events over the weekend. I attended the event with my Husband Tony Martin and a few of his friends as they came away for a break and to support me.
The event started off with the pairs event and I was for the first time partnering the Ladies World Ranked number one player Deta Hedman. To say we played well would be an understatement, We won the event without dropping a single leg along the way winning all games 3-0 in legs. This was a great start to the weekend and i was happy with the way I played.
The next tournament was the Jersey Open singles. I had a very tough draw first round when I was drawn out against Trina Gulliver. This was not one of my best performances and I lost 3-0 in legs. Trina played very well and deserved the victory and Trina made it to the final of this event where she lost out to the young talent of Fallon Sherrock who is one to watch for the future. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OneFDKVSus
The next singles tournament was the Jersey Classic singles. I made it to the last of this tournament and then played my pairs partner for the weekend Deta Hedman who was that little bit to strong for me and beat me 3-2 in legs. This game has been shown many times on dart forums, Facebook, Twitter etc due to the high standard of this game with myself and Deta showing what Ladies darts is all about. Deta made it to the final where she was beaten by Lisa Ashton. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB1Rzsz-Ldo
So after this tournament I had only gained a few more BDO ranking points going into the Zuiderduin Masters. I felt my practice was good but I was just not getting the results that I needed. So it was back to the practice board for me in preparation for county and my next BDO ranked event in December.
IDF WOrld Cup of Darts (Soft-Tip)
Not many people will be aware that I am also the current European Soft-tip darts champion which I won in Benidorm in May 2012 and have previously been the World Champion. This is a game I have had huge success at over the years and a game I enjoy playing all the time.
I was again selected by the Russian Darts Federation to represent my country at the IDF World Cup in Shanghai China which was shown on chinese TV station CCTV which was going to be attended by players from 24 countries including the much fancied teams of USA,Hong Kong and Canada.
We started the play with the Pro Singles event of which I played very well in and was fortunate enough to win the event beating Stacy Bromberg from the USA in the final. This meant that yet again I was the Ladies singles World Champion of soft tip. I was happy with this as this meant I was now the Steel-Tip and Soft-Tip world champion again in the same year, This is something that has never been achieved by any other lady in the history of darts. http://www.edu-dart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/5.WORLD-CUP-SINGLES-PRO-WOMEN.pdf
The next day I then played in the Pro Cricket event. again I played very well and reached the final where I was once again up against Stacy Bromberg. On this instance Stacy got her revenge on me in the final beating me 3-2 in legs after I had missed darts to win 3-1. I was a little disappointed at loosing after having darts to win but becoming runner up to a lady that plays this game all the time I was happy with my results. http://www.edu-dart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/9.World-Cup-Singles-Pro-Cricket-Women.pdf
In the team event, which is played in Round Robin groups, Team Russia were in the group of four team. These games were played after the singles events on both days till the semi-final stages. We were pretty much the surprise team in the last for with the three other teams of Hong Kong, USA and Canada making up the rest of the semi-final teams.Russia played well in the semi-final to beat Canada and played the team of Hong Kong in the final.I was playing well and won the final leg for Russia much to the surprise of many. http://www.edu-dart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/IDF-Darts-World-Cup-Teams-20123.pdf
This was a great tournament and one I will enjoy going back to next year to play in once again. I have put some links below of photos of the event and also some you tube clips that I managed to find.
http://www.edu-dart.com/2012/11/12/idf2012-fotos/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wNzhU16RPs&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5sESM60TeQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6T0w-UoxSA
Start of the 2014 season. Winmau World Masters
Well after some much needed time off in September and a holiday I travelled to Las Vegas to play a soft tip tournament run by DARTSLIVE http://www.darts-theworld.com/en/ which was an excellent tournament.
I decided to travel here in preparation for the soft-tip World Cup of darts of which I would be playing in for myself and team Russia.I have written a separate blog regarding this event. http://www.idfdarts.org
So back to the steel tip. Well the start of 2014 season has really not started to plan. I attended the Winmau World Masters in Hull and I really struggled to hit my doubles in the event and lost out in the last 64 stage 4-2 in legs to Japanese player Kyio Shimizu who I gave chances to and took them well when presented with them. http://www.dartsforwindows.com/winmau/WinmauWorldMastersLadiesSingles11102012.pdf
I had been putting in a lot of practice with my new darts of which I had dropped form 22grams in weight to 20grams in weight as this is the required weight for soft-tip. I had practiced well and scored well but I could just not find that double at the end of the legs which I needed.I knew the change in the weight of the dart had not affected me that much and it was jsut one of those days where I missed my doubles.
I have never really played to my ability yet in the Winmau since winning the youth title. I have been runner up once just before I switched to the PDC. This is one title that is very hard to win and one that still I want to win.
I decided to travel here in preparation for the soft-tip World Cup of darts of which I would be playing in for myself and team Russia.I have written a separate blog regarding this event. http://www.idfdarts.org
So back to the steel tip. Well the start of 2014 season has really not started to plan. I attended the Winmau World Masters in Hull and I really struggled to hit my doubles in the event and lost out in the last 64 stage 4-2 in legs to Japanese player Kyio Shimizu who I gave chances to and took them well when presented with them. http://www.dartsforwindows.com/winmau/WinmauWorldMastersLadiesSingles11102012.pdf
I had been putting in a lot of practice with my new darts of which I had dropped form 22grams in weight to 20grams in weight as this is the required weight for soft-tip. I had practiced well and scored well but I could just not find that double at the end of the legs which I needed.I knew the change in the weight of the dart had not affected me that much and it was jsut one of those days where I missed my doubles.
I have never really played to my ability yet in the Winmau since winning the youth title. I have been runner up once just before I switched to the PDC. This is one title that is very hard to win and one that still I want to win.
EDO England Open
I attended the EDO England Classic in Selsey which was my last BDO ranking event for the rankings for Lakeside 2013. I was already sitting in 2nd place and wanted to guarantee my place as second seed for Lakeside.
I started the day well winning my first two games 3-0 but I knew mentally I was not playing to my full potential as I felt burnt out after a long season.
I did not play to the best of my ability in this tournament and ended up only reaching the last 32 where I was beaten by Jane Judges of Cambridgeshire.
I teamed up again with my regular pairs partner in Loraine Farlam and we had some real tough games during the day and we was very happy to get to the final where we played, C Bywaters and A Jones. we played well in the final and came away 3 nil winners.
This was the last BDO ranking event for Lakeside 2013 and I was very pleased to finish up as 2nd seed for the World Championships.
It had been a long hard season and was a very much pleasurable one being able to travel the circuit as World Champion.
I had managed to win a few singles and pairs titles during the season.
I also shortly after this tournament had finished received the news that I was invited to the Zuiderduin Masters in Egmond Aan Zee in December which is one of the three BDO major events.
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
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Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Antwerp Open
This past weekend I was in the country of Belgium playing the Antwerp open which is the second to last tournament for me to gain some World ranking points for Lakeside World Championships and last chance to get points for the Zuiderduin Masters which is classed as another major in the BDO/WDF calendar which takes place in Holland in early December.
I followed my usual travelling routine of flying to Amsterdam and staying with good friends in Veldhoven for the weekend.
I played in the Mixed pairs with Stephen Bunting on the Saturday morning and I am happy to say that we came out the eventual winners on the day. We got to the final without to much hassle and never dropped a leg till we made the final. In the final we were pushed a little harder and was happy to come out 4-3 winners over Darrel Fitton and his partner.
Next in the day was the Ladies pairs. I was without my usual partner in crime Lorraine Farlam as she was in England participating in the LDO "Ladies Darts Classic". I would have liked to have been able to attend this event but I had already booked flights to Holland before this tournament was finalised earlier in the year. I will speak more about this later.
In the pairs I teamed up with a friend, Monique and we were unfortunate to loose in our second game 3-2 against the very experienced pairing of Dutch internationals, Prins & Schuur. Was nice to play in this game and one leg I was able to hit 2x180.
Sunday was the real reason I had come over to play as it was the Ladies singles. It was a seeded draw and as it turned out because of other seeded players entering and not being able to turn up, the bottom half of the draw which I was in had 4 of the 5 seeds that attended.
I had some comfortable games during the day and some tight games which were of my own doing due to lack of concentration at times. I had played well in the semi-final against Unicorn and Russian team mate Irina Armstrong and was 4-0 up when I let the concentration slip. I had just enough left at the end to come through a 5-4 winner and progress to the Final where I was playing Rachna David from Norway. I won the final which was best of 3 sets, 2 sets to nil, Again I was good in patches and bad in others. This was again due to concentration and I also feel the long wait for the stage finals did not help me, But I cant complain with the win and the 22 points I gained.
I have almost certainly guaranteed myself a second seed at Lakeside in January with the recent victory as my nearest rival Julie Gore is a fair few points behind now on the rolling table.http://www.bdodarts.com/tables.aspx?tid=8 (This table has WDF World cup points to come off)
In the Zuiderduin ranking table I have finished third as I have heard I'm not guaranteed to be in this tournament due to the way they give out places in the rankings and wild cards. I'm hoping that I have a place in this but I will just have to wait and see what the organisation decide to do with the invites.http://www.dartswdf.com/Zuiderduin/Zuiderduin-2012-RW.html
As I was reporting earlier my normal partner Lorraine Farlam was attending a tournament in England run by the newly formed Ladies Darts Organisation. This is a organisation that is pushing the ladies game forward independently after it being held back for long periods of time by others in the game. It was unfortunate that I was not able to attend this event but I will be giving it my full support in the future and would urge all Lady players from all over the world to get on board and join as members. I have included the link for the website for you all to have a look at. http://www.ladiesdartsorganisation.com
My next travels take me down to the Sussex cost to play in the EDO England Classic taking place in Selsey. I believe their may be some live internet streaming so I hope you will be able to catch me live over the coming weekend if I'm lucky enough to make the stage finals. http://www.englanddarts.co.uk
Don't forget that you can book me or any of the other GR8 of darts players by enquiring at http://www.gr8ofdarts.co.uk
Well I have typed enough and now its time to get back to the practice.
Thanks for reading and hope to see you all soon.
Anastasia xx
I followed my usual travelling routine of flying to Amsterdam and staying with good friends in Veldhoven for the weekend.
I played in the Mixed pairs with Stephen Bunting on the Saturday morning and I am happy to say that we came out the eventual winners on the day. We got to the final without to much hassle and never dropped a leg till we made the final. In the final we were pushed a little harder and was happy to come out 4-3 winners over Darrel Fitton and his partner.
Next in the day was the Ladies pairs. I was without my usual partner in crime Lorraine Farlam as she was in England participating in the LDO "Ladies Darts Classic". I would have liked to have been able to attend this event but I had already booked flights to Holland before this tournament was finalised earlier in the year. I will speak more about this later.
In the pairs I teamed up with a friend, Monique and we were unfortunate to loose in our second game 3-2 against the very experienced pairing of Dutch internationals, Prins & Schuur. Was nice to play in this game and one leg I was able to hit 2x180.
Sunday was the real reason I had come over to play as it was the Ladies singles. It was a seeded draw and as it turned out because of other seeded players entering and not being able to turn up, the bottom half of the draw which I was in had 4 of the 5 seeds that attended.
I had some comfortable games during the day and some tight games which were of my own doing due to lack of concentration at times. I had played well in the semi-final against Unicorn and Russian team mate Irina Armstrong and was 4-0 up when I let the concentration slip. I had just enough left at the end to come through a 5-4 winner and progress to the Final where I was playing Rachna David from Norway. I won the final which was best of 3 sets, 2 sets to nil, Again I was good in patches and bad in others. This was again due to concentration and I also feel the long wait for the stage finals did not help me, But I cant complain with the win and the 22 points I gained.
I have almost certainly guaranteed myself a second seed at Lakeside in January with the recent victory as my nearest rival Julie Gore is a fair few points behind now on the rolling table.http://www.bdodarts.com/tables.aspx?tid=8 (This table has WDF World cup points to come off)
In the Zuiderduin ranking table I have finished third as I have heard I'm not guaranteed to be in this tournament due to the way they give out places in the rankings and wild cards. I'm hoping that I have a place in this but I will just have to wait and see what the organisation decide to do with the invites.http://www.dartswdf.com/Zuiderduin/Zuiderduin-2012-RW.html
As I was reporting earlier my normal partner Lorraine Farlam was attending a tournament in England run by the newly formed Ladies Darts Organisation. This is a organisation that is pushing the ladies game forward independently after it being held back for long periods of time by others in the game. It was unfortunate that I was not able to attend this event but I will be giving it my full support in the future and would urge all Lady players from all over the world to get on board and join as members. I have included the link for the website for you all to have a look at. http://www.ladiesdartsorganisation.com
My next travels take me down to the Sussex cost to play in the EDO England Classic taking place in Selsey. I believe their may be some live internet streaming so I hope you will be able to catch me live over the coming weekend if I'm lucky enough to make the stage finals. http://www.englanddarts.co.uk
Don't forget that you can book me or any of the other GR8 of darts players by enquiring at http://www.gr8ofdarts.co.uk
Well I have typed enough and now its time to get back to the practice.
Thanks for reading and hope to see you all soon.
Anastasia xx
Monday, 3 September 2012
IDPA Super Series and British Open
This passed weekend I was on my travels to Bridlington to play in the IDPA super series and most importantly the BDO British Open.
I played some steady game son the Friday evening in the Super Series beating on my way to the final, Zoe Jones, Michelle Webber, Trina Gulliver and in the final I was happy to come out victorious against Julie Gore from Wales. This was a nice warm up tournament for me as I have been spending the last 2 weeks in Russia with my family and sorting some other darting business out for my darting trips later in the year which I will report on nearer the time.
Saturday at Bridlington was the ladies pairs and I joined up with my usual partner Lorraine Farlam. We played many steady games throughout the day and won thorough to the semi finals on the Sunday evening where we were due to play the pairing of Trina Gullivers and her wife Sue Gulliver.
Sunday was a late start for me as I was seeded number 3 in the ladies draw, Not quite sure how they worked the seedings out with be currently being world number 2 but I was placed as 3rd seed for the day. I played some great darts throughout the day, I had some troubles with my concentration as the venue was very noisy at times. I made it through to the last 8 where I was to play Tamara Schuur from the Netherlands. I raced into a 2-0 lead and then my concentration lapsed again. I eventually lost the game and the last 2 legs Tamara outplayed me on the board and deserved to win in the end. Tamara has been playing very well of late and was recently runner up in the Sweden open last week which I did not attend. Tamara is fighting for the last automatic play off place for Lakeside and at the moment on current form is looking good to get there.
I had to wait around for several hours after I had finished my singles to play in the ladies semi final. We eventually took the stage around 3hrs after waiting and we were very comfortable winners winning 4-0 and not really being pushed to any great degree. In the other semi final was Deta Hedman and Dee Bateman vs Julie Gore and Rhian Griffiths, This was a real battle of a game and Julie and Rhian eventually came out winners 4-3 with it going down to a nail biting finish.
The final is most probably one final I want to forget. It has to go down as a bad day in the office for me and Lorraine. We were in, out and shake it all about. We could not at all find any consistency at all between us and we eventually ended up loosing what can only be described as a poor final from all players concerned 4-2. Congratulations go to Julie and Rhian as they become British Open pairs champions 2012.
Next up I have county this weekend (9th September) for Cheshire vs Lancashire and my next tournament after that will be a trip to Antwerp for my second to last ranking event for Lakeside 2013 where I am currently sitting in 2nd place with a bit of breathing space between myself and 3rd place.
Thanks for reading and I will keep you all updated of my darting adventures.
Anastasia xx
I played some steady game son the Friday evening in the Super Series beating on my way to the final, Zoe Jones, Michelle Webber, Trina Gulliver and in the final I was happy to come out victorious against Julie Gore from Wales. This was a nice warm up tournament for me as I have been spending the last 2 weeks in Russia with my family and sorting some other darting business out for my darting trips later in the year which I will report on nearer the time.
Saturday at Bridlington was the ladies pairs and I joined up with my usual partner Lorraine Farlam. We played many steady games throughout the day and won thorough to the semi finals on the Sunday evening where we were due to play the pairing of Trina Gullivers and her wife Sue Gulliver.
Sunday was a late start for me as I was seeded number 3 in the ladies draw, Not quite sure how they worked the seedings out with be currently being world number 2 but I was placed as 3rd seed for the day. I played some great darts throughout the day, I had some troubles with my concentration as the venue was very noisy at times. I made it through to the last 8 where I was to play Tamara Schuur from the Netherlands. I raced into a 2-0 lead and then my concentration lapsed again. I eventually lost the game and the last 2 legs Tamara outplayed me on the board and deserved to win in the end. Tamara has been playing very well of late and was recently runner up in the Sweden open last week which I did not attend. Tamara is fighting for the last automatic play off place for Lakeside and at the moment on current form is looking good to get there.
I had to wait around for several hours after I had finished my singles to play in the ladies semi final. We eventually took the stage around 3hrs after waiting and we were very comfortable winners winning 4-0 and not really being pushed to any great degree. In the other semi final was Deta Hedman and Dee Bateman vs Julie Gore and Rhian Griffiths, This was a real battle of a game and Julie and Rhian eventually came out winners 4-3 with it going down to a nail biting finish.
The final is most probably one final I want to forget. It has to go down as a bad day in the office for me and Lorraine. We were in, out and shake it all about. We could not at all find any consistency at all between us and we eventually ended up loosing what can only be described as a poor final from all players concerned 4-2. Congratulations go to Julie and Rhian as they become British Open pairs champions 2012.
Next up I have county this weekend (9th September) for Cheshire vs Lancashire and my next tournament after that will be a trip to Antwerp for my second to last ranking event for Lakeside 2013 where I am currently sitting in 2nd place with a bit of breathing space between myself and 3rd place.
Thanks for reading and I will keep you all updated of my darting adventures.
Anastasia xx
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