Irishman Willie O'Connor almost pulled off a massive upset in the PDC World Championship last night, losing to Gerwyn Price in the deciding set in the most dramatic of circumstances.
Third seed Price managed to break O'Connor's throw in the penultimate leg of the match but only after O'Connor had mistakenly wasted three darts going for double one when he actually needed double two. A fortuitous Price finished out from 75 before winning the deciding leg.
Speaking to Dan Dawson after the match, O'Connor was still oblivious to his error until Dawson pointed it out to him:
Dawson: When he broke your throw in the tiebreaker, you wanted four and it looked like you were throwing at double one. Was that a miscount? What happened?
O'Connor: No I wanted eight. I wanted eight and I hit four and then I went for double two.
Dawson: No, when you were throwing at double one and ended up busting your score, your were on four. So you've gone for the double one and then hit the one and busted your score by hitting 18. You actually wanted double two there...
O'Connor: Yea? I don't know why. Maybe I thought I saw a two on the board. To be honest I thought I'd wanted double two, I looked at the board and thought I saw a two so I just went for it. I'm not sure, it's just something that happened that I'll look at later. I just thought I saw a two wrote on the board. I wasn't listening to what was said to me.
"I’m gutted to be honest. I’m obviously not learning from my past mistakes because it was there for the taking," added O'Connor. Price is now second favourite for the title behind van Gerwen.
