Webster lights up after pulling the plug on ‘Power’
On a dramatic New Year’s Day in north London’s Alexandra Palace, Dutchman Raymond van Barneveld was also bundled out, by an inspired Gary Anderson.
Van Barneveld was world champion four times in his BDO days and has been champion once, in 2007, since joining the PDC.
Taylor had crushed Webster 6-0 in last year’s semi-finals on his way to the title, but this time the 50-year-old was the beaten man, losing his quarter-final 5-2 to the 27-year-old from Denbigh, north Wales, in a stunning upset.
Taylor failed to reach the semi-finals in 2008, but in every other year since 1994 has reached the PDC world final.
And Taylor had no complaints about the outcome.
He said: “He was the better player without a shadow of a doubt. The number of times he hit the double with his last dart was crippling, his bottle was brilliant.
“I’m fine with losing, he played better than I did. I gave it a good go but I didn’t play as well as I can do and my preparations were not the best, but I can now put my head down for the next 12 months and go and win titles.”
A delighted Webster said that his heavy defeat of a year ago had served as extra motivation.
“The main objective was to do myself justice and I played the board and not the man this time. I am not a man that averages 110 or 115 so I needed to get Phil involved in a scrap and it worked for me. I took my chances and it’s the biggest win of my career.”
“I was very nervous at the start so to win the first set was lucky, and then I settled in and I was 3-1 up, and I knew if I lost 5-3 no-one would bat an eyelid. The pressure was off and I played some good darts.”
With Taylor out, Van Barneveld would have been hot favourite for the title but he crashed out to Scotland’s Anderson 5-1.
* Anderson booked his place in this evening’s final with a 6-2 victory over Terry Jenkins last night.
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