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Adrian Lewis
Darts

Lewis sends Barney packing to set up final against defending champion

Adrian Lewis will face Gary Anderson in the PDC World Championship decider.

ADRIAN LEWIS IS just one victory away from his third PDC World Championship title after ending Raymond van Barneveld’s stunning run with a 6-3 victory to set up a final with defending champion Gary Anderson.

Van Barneveld, who won the tournament in 2007 having taken the BDO world title four times, produced rousing fightbacks to beat Stephen Bunting, world number one Michael van Gerwen and Michael Smith to progress to the semi-finals.

However, he gave himself too much to do against Lewis, who raced into a 5-0 lead before being given a scare by the legendary Dutchman. Lewis made a dream start as he claimed an early break and went on to wrap up the opening set in clinical fashion, and then sealed the first two legs of the second.

Van Barneveld won two in a row to get up and running but Lewis clinched the deciding leg to lead 2-0. The Englishman then lost just three legs in as many sets to stand on the brink of a whitewash at 5-0.

A stunning show of character saw Van Barneveld threaten a comeback as he checked out 112 to avoid a straight-sets defeat and cut the gap to 5-2 by taking out 134. The Alexandra Palace crowd was in a frenzy when Van Barneveld claimed his third consecutive set but Lewis refused to be denied and took out double nine to end Van Barneveld’s resistance.

And it is Anderson who awaits Lewis in the tournament showpiece following his emphatic 6-0 whitewash of Jelle Klaasen in Saturday’s second semi-final. Klaasen had knocked out 16-time champion Phil Taylor in a stunning third-round upset but was sent crashing down to earth by a superb showing from Anderson.

The Scot recorded the competition’s first nine-dart finish to win the opening set and never looked back from there as Anderson surged into the final to keep his hopes of a second successive title very much alive.

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