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Friday evening, May 9, 2003, the hall was filled to capacity and excitement brewed as the
Draw Doubles of the Billard Le Skratch Sarantos Retsinas Memorial Quebec Dart Player's Open began in the heart of Montreal.
There were 236 entries for the Draw Doubles, 118 teams. The field included players from Canada, US and England, however, the usual contingent from England was down nearly 40 players due to the exhibition being held in Calgary, AB, prior to the Golden Harvest which, unfortunately, drew many of the overseas players there instead of Montreal.
The event was thrilling through the end with Dennis Priestley and Edward St.
Germain just getting by Ray Carver and Luc Grendron to reach the final to meet Roland Scholten and Stephen Roy who defeated Pierre Lemay and Dave Kendall to
reach the final.
Priestley and St. Germain took, stole rather, the first leg of the best of five final but Scholten and Roy focused on the next three legs cleaning them up before the opportunity to let another slip by. The Draw Doubles was a proper warm-up for the tournament's main events to begin at 10:00 AM the following morning.
Sadly, missing from the control center was long time tournament director, Carol
Leger, who, more than anyone, would have loved to have been there. She has been hospitalized since February.
Saturday Day 2
Day 2 is moving day at the Sarantos Retsinas Memorial Open. Players compete
in Round Robin competitions to advance to the knockout brackets on Day 3. It's a long day of tough competition, but the players have an opportunity to
recover from a mistake or a bad match and still advance to the big money rounds.
The men were divided into 16 groups for round robin competition.
Each group had 9 players with one group having ten, a total of 145 men. Four players would advance from each group to the Sunday knockout competition. The remaining players who did not make it through their group would compete in a consolation singles.
Advancing from Group A, 1 through 4 respectively, were John Part, Jerry Van Loan,
Paul Boldac, and Glen Shearer; from Group B were Colin Lloyd, Isen Veljic, Dave Bicknell, and Thomas Curtin; from Group C were Roland Scholten, Stephane
Rousseau, Allen Gilks, and Mario Isabelle; from Group D were Denis Ovens, Doug Scanlon, Daniel Beauregard, and Evan Gilks; from Group E were Dennis Priestley,
Luc Grendron, Josh Decker, and Kevin Munn; from Group F were Bob Anderson, Terry Hayhurst, Jayson Barlow, and John Doyle III; from Group G were Steve Brown,
Marshall James, Martin Tremblay, and Mike Reid; from Group H were Lionel Sams, Bob Given, Jerry Hull, and Camil Bureau; from Group I were Matt Chapman, Mark
Dudbridge, Marc Asselin, and Norman Beaulieu; from Group J were Al Hedman, Chris Maquire, Allan Vallcourt, and Rene Boucher; from Group K were Alan Reynolds,
Jeff Coleman, Andrew Penney, and Marco Gonthier; from Group L were Ray Carver, John Morrison, Mike Smith, and Jean-Guy Lemelin; from Group M were Jason
Bernard, Claude Seguin, Sebastein Gagnon, and Stephen Roy; from Group N were Gaston Gagne, David Kendall, Mark Noble, and Don Ryan; from Group O were Dennis
Latimer, David Peter, Ken Richardson, and Edward St. Germain; and from Group P were Christian Chartrand, Ron Miller, Michael Gauthier, and Brian Ross.
The women were divided into four groups of nine players in each group except one
with ten for a total of 37 women. Again, the top four women from each group would advance to Sunday's knockout bracket. Advancing from Group A were
Crissy Howat, Carlie Blay, Joanne Alves, and Lezlie Robinson; from Group B were Deta Hedman, Kathy Ovens, Christina Campbell, and Sam Walker; from Group C were
Heather Draper, Nancy Ste-croix, Robin Curry, and Liz Davis; and from Group D were Catherine Haycock, Debbie Baxter, Marie-Julie Chartrand, and Tina DiGregorio.
The Finals Day
The fianl day began with the Knockout competitions for the consolation singles,
men’ and women’ and with the knockout competitions for the men’ and women’s main event singles. The women played best of three games, best of three sets
while the men played best of three games, best of 5 sets.
Colin Lloyd smoked through the field to the final never looking back while Dennis
Priestley worked his magic taking huge outs of 161 twice, 170, 152, 149 to get through his matches to reach the final.
Lloyd beat Quebec player Luc Gendron 3 set to nil then another Quebec player Paul Bolduc by the same score, 3 sets to nil. Next in line was World Masters Champion Mark Dudbridge, and Jaws cut through him 3 sets to 1. In the semi final, Lloyd faced last year's finalist, Bob Anderson, and took him out in three straight sets. His comment about Priestley’s high outs, “I don’t plan to leave him any high outs to shoot at!”
Priestley, on the other hand, was in good form, but facing equally tough
opponents.
He took out Marshall James 3 sets to nil, and then faced the tough American, Ray Carver. The match went to 2 sets all and down to the last leg in the decider before Priestley put an end to the challenge. That win put him up against the current World Champion, john Part, who was on top of his game. Part was throughing great scores and getting to the double with ease, but a missed double in the third set let Priestley steal a game from 152. Then in the fourth set, Priestley did not let Part in taking the winning leg from 149 with Part looking sure to finish the 48 he had remaining to send the match to a fifth set. It was not to be for Part, the local favorite, and for Priestley it was a beautiful win.
In the women's championship match, it was three time defending champion, Crissy
Howat, up against Deta Hedman, winner of last year's Las Vegas Desert Classic. Hedman drew first blood with an 18 darter that included two tons and a
140. Howat wasn’t about to let her title slip away so quickly and returned the 18 dart favor taking game two with a brilliant 107 finish. Hedman
started the deciding leg of the first set and finish her second 18 darter to win the first set 2 games to 1.
The girls split the first two games of the second set with Hedman taking the
first in 19 darts and Howat the secondin 20.
The decider went down tot he wire with Howat first to look at a double from 72, missing the 36 with 2 darts. Hedman, resting on 40, had three darts wide of the wire to hand the game and set back to Howat who promptly finshed to level the match at 1 set each.
Hedman took the first game in the third and final set after Howat missed three
darts wide of the double 4. Then to clinch the final set, Hedman shot 100, 60, 85, 140 and a brilliant 116 finish for a 15 darter. Best of three
sets to Deta Hedman, 2 sets to 1.
In the men’s best of 5 sets final, Colin Lloyd won the bull ove Dennis Priestley
and the right to start. He opened 125, 180 to Priestley’s 2 tons and never looked back taking the first leg. Priestley posted the first maximum in
leg two, but Lloyd kept the pressure on with a 140 to leave 112.
Priestley couldn't convert from 92 and Colin finished the leg taking the first set 2 games to none.
In the second set, Priestley won the first leg in 16 darts cleaning up tops.
In the second leg, Priestley posted his second maxium of the match and took the set 2 games to nil, returning the favor, to level the match at 1 set each.
The third set started strong with both players posting ton or better scores back
to back until they reached the double where Priestley cleaned up 79 for a 15 darter scoring 100, 100, 100, 122, 79. Priestley backed up his start with a
17 darter finishing from 70 to take the second set 2 legs to nil.
Losing 4 games on the trot, Lloyd reached the double first in the first leg of
the fouth set, but failed to convert and Priestley continued his fine finishing with a 107 game shot. Lloyd felt the pressure mounting as time was
beginning to run out. One more leg to Priestley in this set and the match would be over.
Lloyd posted his first maximum in the next leg, but Priestley followed it with 134 and Lloyd only managed 45 on his next turn. That left the door open for Priestley, but the finish was not there this time and Lloyd cleaned up 40 on his next turn. One game each in the fourth set. Priestley mounted a final charge not wanting the match to go to another set and opened shooting 100, 125, 125, 85, 55. Lloyd must have felt the pressure to win and managed only 44, 45, 48, 40 and finally a 134, but it was too little too late as Priestley finished from 67 on his next turn. Game, set and match to Dennis Priestley.
Click here to view complete event results...
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