THERE WAS NO fairytale ending for Fermanagh’s Brendan Dolan last night as Phil Taylor picked up his tenth World Grand Prix darts title with a nervy 6-3 win in Dublin’s Citywest Hotel.
A surprise finalist following Saturday’s heroics against defending champion James Wade, Dolan will reflect on what might have been had he settled into the biggest match of his career early on.
By the time the Northerner found form in front of a vocal crowd, Taylor had already won six of the opening seven legs to claim a 2-0 lead.
It was only in the third that Dolan, whose efforts this week saw him jump from 36th to 25th in the world rankings, finally sparked to life and showed some glimpses of the form which had taken him this far. Three consecutive legs finally gave him a foothold in the match, adding a bit of an edge to the contest at 2-1.
The opportunities were there for Dolan in the fourth as well as he produced a 170 checkout to spark a mini revival which saw him square the set at two legs apiece.
And although Taylor showed his experience to take the deciding leg of that set, he couldn’t press home his advantage in the next and allowed Dolan back into the match at 3-2.
That was as close as the underdog would come to an upset however. Taylor built up a head of steam with back-to-back sets to open up a 5-2 lead and move within one set of the title.
To the crowd’s delight, Dolan showed that he was not willing to go down without a fight, narrowing the gap to 5-3 with some gutsy throwing in the eighth.
In the end, the gulf between the world number one and one of the event’s two Irish qualifiers showed as Taylor closed out another win, taking home £100,000 for his efforts.
