{"id":11471,"date":"2026-04-10T07:47:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=11471"},"modified":"2026-04-10T07:47:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:47:33","slug":"clinical-clayton-battles-to-brighton-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/clinical-clayton-battles-to-brighton-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinical Clayton battles to Brighton glory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Jonny Clayton claimed Night Ten glory in Brighton to recapture top spot in the Premier League standings last night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clayton scooped his third nightly victory of the campaign thanks to a trio of hard-fought wins over Luke Humphries, Josh Rock and Michael van Gerwen in the final to reinstate his position at the summit of the standings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Welsh number one pipped defending champion Humphries in a last-leg decider in his opening fixture, taking a clutch 84 outshot on the bullseye after surviving a match dart to sink the world number two.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clayton then overturned his recent form against Rock to down the Northern Irishman 6-4, confirming his position in top spot and setting up a final against Van Gerwen.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 2021 Premier League champion struck a majestic 140 checkout to take a 1-0 lead in the contest, but found himself trailing 3-1 and then 5-2 after a fantastic surge by Van Gerwen, who was averaging over 105 as he closed in on a second nightly win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Clayton rallied in a remarkable comeback, surviving two match darts at 5-2 down and another pair of match darts at 5-4 down before levelling the contest with another 84 kill on the bullseye to make it 5-5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 51-year-old then saw out the last-leg decider with a composed 12-darter to complete the comeback and seal nightly victory on the south coast in style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m back on top of the table, and it&#8217;s time for Luke Littler to start chasing me again!&#8221; declared Clayton, who now possesses a three-point gap over second-placed Luke Littler in the standings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I thought the game was over at 5-2 against Michael, but you have to take your chances, and that last leg was probably my best leg of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Obviously I lost to Josh [Rock] in the last couple of weeks, and it puts you under pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Coming into tonight I was just hoping for two points. Anything after that was a bonus, so to win the night is great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s another trophy for the cabinet and I&#8217;m back on top, so I&#8217;m happy!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Gerwen reached his fourth nightly final of the campaign after battling through tight contests against Dutch compatriot Gian van Veen and two-time World Championship semi-finalist Stephen Bunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The seven-time Premier League champion pipped Van Veen to a 6-4 win, capitalising on poor doubling from the world number three to move into the semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Dutch number two then edged past Bunting in a last-leg decider, increasing his buffer in the Play-Off places to four points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the other quarter-finals, Rock bagged his third consecutive opening-round win with a 6-3 success against Gerwyn Price, climbing up to six points and halting the Welshman&#8217;s push for top spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bunting put out an off-colour Littler 6-4 to move up to sixth in the standings, as the World Champion recorded the lowest televised PDC average of his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next week, the Premier League moves across the English Channel, as Rotterdam hosts another crucial night of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dutch number one Van Veen will host Humphries on his first Premier League night on home soil, as home hero Van Gerwen faces Clayton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Littler locks horns with Price in a crucial battle near the top of the table, while Bunting hopes to make further inroads towards the Play-Offs as he takes on Rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ranking points will be awarded per night &#8211; with five to the winner, three to the runner-up and two to the semi-finalists &#8211; to form the league table from which the top four players will progress to Finals Night at The O2 in London on Thursday May 28.<strong><br><br>RESULTS<br>Quarter-Finals<br><\/strong>Jonny Clayton 6-5 Luke Humphries<br>Josh Rock 6-3 Gerwyn Price<br>Stephen Bunting 6-4 Luke Littler<br>Michael van Gerwen 6-4 Gian van Veen<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Semi-Finals<\/strong><br>Jonny Clayton 6-4 Josh Rock<br>Michael van Gerwen 6-5 Stephen Bunting<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Final<\/strong><br>Jonny Clayton 6-5 Michael van Gerwen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jonny Clayton claimed Night Ten glory in Brighton to recapture top spot in the Premier League standings last<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-11471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-darts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1.jpg",2400,2016,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1-300x252.jpg",300,252,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1-768x645.jpg",640,538,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1-1024x860.jpg",640,538,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1-1536x1290.jpg",1536,1290,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1-2048x1720.jpg",2048,1720,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/international\/\" rel=\"category tag\">International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026PremierLeagueNight6_FINAL_ClaytonPR-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11472,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471\/revisions\/11472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}