Hempel-Vanquisher loses because of lovesickness at the Darts World Cup
With the thoughts elsewhere: For Raymond Smith (right) the match against Mervyn King was a minor matter
Quelle: Getty Images/Luke Walker
Raymond Smith missed the quarter-finals at the Darts World Cup. After a successful start, the Australian suffered serious lovesickness on stage. He was close to tears, said the underdog, who was the biggest surprise of the tournament with three wins.
He was the sensation of this Darts World Cup. Raymond Smith started as one of the regional qualifiers in the world championship. At most the second round was given to the exotic from Australia.
But the 42-year-old, who formed the first father-son pair at a World Cup with Ky Smith, made it to the round of 16. After victories over Jamie Hughes, Devon Petersen and Florian Hempel, the “guru” got up against Mervyn King on Thursday afternoon, and for a long time it looked as if the fairy tale would continue into the new year.
Smith led the Englishman with a sovereign 2-0, but then gave the third round to zero. A break had run through his game. Trend reversals occur in darts, the momentum often changes more than once in a match.
Good start: Raymond Smith was initially on his way to the quarter-finals
Quelle: Getty Images/Luke Walker
But this time the change had a grave cause, as Smith revealed a few hours after his defeat. “Sorry … at the end of the day I fought back tears after the third sentence … The love of my life is on the other side of the world, and I just couldn’t handle it as well as I thought … It hit me fully in the third sentence and I tried to fight it as hard as possible, but I had pulled myself out, ”he wrote on Twitter.
Lovesickness during a World Cup round of 16. That had never happened before at the Alexandra Palace. A romantic story that apparently cost him the quarter-finals, a further £ 15,000 bonus and the tour ticket. Although that would have been out of the question anyway, given Smith’s homesickness.
Smith made it 3-1 at Alexandra Palace in front of his son who failed in round one, but then he had nothing more to oppose the experienced Englishman: 3: 2, 3: 3, 3: 4.
The father sick, the brother took his own life
Father and son have been in London for two weeks, celebrating Christmas in a very small group. Apparently, Smith senior has had enough. He looks forward to returning and seeing his wife and children again.
In addition, his father is ill and does not have a good prognosis. Smith had already doubted whether he would even see a tour card. “I want to sit by his side when he dies,” he said in an interview with WELT, who had lost his brother to suicide in April 2019.
In this respect, the World Cup was worth a lot to him. In addition to two weeks of positive headlines, reaching the round of 16 and a total of a proud 42,500 pounds in bonus for the Smith family, father Raymond realized that he was apparently not made for a touring life far away from home anyway.
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