A resilient Ross Smith denied nine-dart star Josh Rock to emotionally secure his second ProTour title of 2025 at the Players Championship 29 in Leicester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith had withdrawn from last weekend’s Swiss Darts Trophy for family reasons, but produced a classy series of displays as he swept all the way to victory at the Mattioli Arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith showed his class with four ton-plus averages during the event, while he also came from 6-4 and 7-5 down in the final against Rock before snatching victory with a 118 checkout in the deciding leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The win follows up Smith’s imperious Players Championship 16 success in May, while the former European Champion was visibly emotional as he embraced Rock after landing the winning double 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith showed his class with four ton-plus averages during the event, while he also came from 6-4 and 7-5 down in the final against Rock before snatching victory with a 118 checkout in the deciding leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The win follows up Smith’s imperious Players Championship 16 success in May, while the former European Champion was visibly emotional as he embraced Rock after landing the winning double 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith’s run in Wednesday’s event began with a 104 average as he saw off Berry van Peer, and he then saw off Jamai van den Herik and Lukas Wenig for the loss of just three legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He then produced a sensational 106 average to whitewash Michael van Gerwen in the last 16, before seeing off Ryan Meikle and Wessel Nijman to make the decider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rock produced the day’s only nine-dart finish during his Round Three win over Wesley Plaisier, and he went on to defeat two further Dutchmen – Dirk van Duijvenbode and Danny Noppert – to reach the semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There, he enjoyed a 7-4 success against Gary Anderson – claiming the game’s decisive only break of throw in leg four – but was denied a second Players Championship title of 2025 by the narrowest of margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anderson and Nijman enjoyed encouraging runs to the semi-finals in the build-up to next week’s BOYLE Sports World Grand Prix, while world number one Luke Humphries and World Masters finalist Jonny Clayton progressed to the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Gerwen won through to the last 16 as he continues his bid to secure a spot in next month’s Ladbrokes Players Championship Finals, while Nathan Aspinall also remains outside the 64 qualifying places following his first round exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last 16<\/strong>: Ryan Meikle 6-5 Stephen Bunting; Ross Smith 6-0 Michael van Gerwen; Wessel Nijman 6-5 Martin Schindler; Jonny Clayton 6-3 Mike De Decker; Gary Anderson 6-5 Darryl Pilgrim; Luke Humphries 6-5 Cameron Menzies; Josh Rock 6-3 Dirk van Duijvenbode; Danny Noppert 6-2 Niels Zonneveld<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quarter-Finals<\/strong>: Ross Smith 6-4 Ryan Meikle; Wessel Nijman 6-0 Jonny Clayton; Gary Anderson 6-5 Luke Humphries; Josh Rock 6-2 Danny Noppert<\/p>\n\n\n\n Semi-Finals<\/strong>: Ross Smith 7-3 Wessel Nijman<\/p>\n\n\n\n Josh Rock 7-4 Gary Anderson<\/p>\n\n\n\n Final<\/strong>: Ross Smith 8-7 Josh Rock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A resilient Ross Smith denied nine-dart star Josh Rock to emotionally secure his second ProTour title of 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4022,"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-4021","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\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed.jpg",2400,1970,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed-300x246.jpg",300,246,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed-768x630.jpg",640,525,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed-1024x841.jpg",640,526,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed-1536x1261.jpg",1536,1261,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed-2048x1681.jpg",2048,1681,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025WMR1_Smith4_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021","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=4021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4023,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions\/4023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}