Darts provided a few shocks and some magnificent matches at the Exhibition World Bahrain.
All the top ranked seeded players: Luke Littler, Luke Humphries, Gian van Veen, Michael van Gerwen, Stephen Bunting, Danny Noppert, Gerwyn Price and Nathan Aspinall progressed to the quarter-finals of the competition.
From there, the first surprised occurred when Price knocked out Littler 6-2 as the Welshman made the most of his three-darts average and checkouts.
A close, contested matchup then followed as van Gerwen was just able to get the better of Bunting to win 6-4.
Nathan Aspinall put in an unstoppable performance to knock out the #2 ranked Humphries, winning 6-3 while acquiring an average of 104.43 in the nine-game bout.
Despite both Dutchmen having high averages, van Veen dominated when it came to the checkouts as he beat Noppert 6-1 to book a place in the semi-final.
‘The Green Machine’ was on fire in his semi-final performance against Price, defeating ‘The Iceman’ 7-2 and achieving seven 180s thrown in the match.
The back-to-back World Youth Champion prevailed from the last four after conquering ‘The Asp’ 7-4, hoping to redeem himself in the final after becoming the runner-up in the Darts World Championship.
In a veteran vs prospect matchup, the battle of the Dutchmen did not disappoint as van Gerwen and van Veen displayed a great game of darts.
At one stage in the match, MVG was up 6-2 and looked to be cruising his way to victory, but the 23-year-old brought it back to 6-5 to gain some hope.
In the end, van Gerwen checked out 66 to succeed in the final and win the Bahrain Masters for the first time in his career.
It’s the first trophy the 36-year-old has won since his World Series of Darts Finals glory last year in September.
The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈 
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