Banks Qualifies For Champions Week

Recap – Banks Qualifies For Champions Week

Thomas Banks qualified for Champions Week at the MODUS Super Series after winning the Week Nine title on Saturday night.

The Mission Academy player, who turns 18 next month, defeated Ireland’s Conor Heneghan 4-2 in the final in Portsmouth to secure his place in the series finale of the competition.

‘The Bulldog’ topped Group C on Friday to qualify for the six-player week final the next day, and he went on to beat Tom Lonsdale, Mike van Duivenbode, Scott Mitchell and Heneghan to earn a spot in Champions Week.

Banks joins fellow Mission player Connor Scutt in the 12-player line-up for Champions Week later this month. Joe Croft will be looking to join them when he starts his campaign in Week 10 this morning.

Josh Rock claimed his second PDC ProTour title of the season with a victory in Players Championship 17 in Milton Keynes on Friday.

‘Rocky’ had opened his account for 2024 with a memorable triumph at the Dutch Darts Championship in May, and the Northern Ireland number one doubled his title tally for this term with success on the floor last week.

Rock reeled off wins against Aden Kirk, Owen Roelofs, Scott Williams, Niels Zonneveld, Cameron Menzies and Ross Smith to reach the final, where he took out a 170 finish in the penultimate leg of his 8-6 victory over Joe Cullen in the decider.

The £15,000 title moves the world number 17 to within less than £2,000 of breaking into the top 16 on the PDC Order of Merit for the first time.

Meanwhile, Wessel Nijman broke new ground on the ProTour with a run to his first Players Championship final on Wednesday.

The Development Tour Order of Merit leader picked up wins against the likes of Gian van Veen, Gary Anderson and Damon Heta to reach his maiden PDC senior final at Players Championship 15, where he lost out 8-6 to Premier League champion Luke Littler.

The Dutchman capped off a profitable week in Milton Keynes with double qualification success in Saturday’s European Tour Qualifiers. Nijman won all six of his matches to qualify for both the Hungarian Darts Trophy (ET11) and the Swiss Darts Trophy (ET12) next month.

Martin Lukeman will join Nijman in Budapest after battling through last-leg deciders in the ET11 qualifier, whilst Madars Razma and Graham Hall also qualified for the PDC’s first ever European Tour event in Switzerland.

A busy week of ProTour action saw Connor Scutt and James Hurrell both enjoy quarter-final runs during the Players Championship triple header.

Scutt, who was invited as a top-up player from the Challenge Tour Order of Merit, caught the eye with wins over Danny Noppert and James Wade at Players Championship 16, and even missed double 12 for a nine-dart leg during his victory against Wade.

Hurrell reached his third ProTour quarter-final of the season at Players Championship 17 to strengthen his bid for a PDC World Championship debut at the end of the year.

Elsewhere, Lex Paeshuyse impressed on home soil with a final and semi-final during a WDF double header of youth events at the weekend.

The 12-year-old reached the final of the Antwerp Open and the semi-finals of the Belgium Open, picking up 124 ranking points to enter the WDF Boys world rankings at number 59.

Picture: MODUS Super Series

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