TERRY Temple came within one match of winning a place in next month’s prestigious PDC World Championship field at Alexandra Palace, writes Dave Flett.
The North Yorkshire ace won through five matches to reach the final eliminator at Barnsley’s Metrodome with the PDPA qualifier coming at the end of three days that had seen Temple, left, beat reigning two-time world champion Adrian Lewis, and current world number two, in a separate tournament.
Temple triumphed over Joe Thompson (5-0), Gareth Pass (5-3), Shaun Griffiths (5-1), Ross Smith (5-1) and former Premier League runner-up Roland Scholten (5-3) to close in on a first-ever World Championship appearance.
He then faced Stuart Kellett, positioned seven places below world number 72 Temple in the PDC rankings, for the right to play in the famous Sky Sports-televised extravaganza.
Northwich website designer Kellett prevailed running out a 5-1 winner to dash Temple’s hopes.
Prior to that competition, Whitwell-on-the-Hill-based Temple had defeated world number two Lewis 6-5 in the first round of a PDC Players Championship event at Barnsley.
He went on to beat Keith Stephen 6-3 before being edged out by outsider Adam Hunt 6-5.
World number six Wes Newton knocked Temple out 6-1 during the next day’s second Players Championship contest at the same South Yorkshire venue.
York’s Chris Thompson and Martyn Turner lost their first World Championship qualifier games.
Thompson lost 5-1 to Dyson Parody while Turner tumbled 5-4 to Kentaro Suzuki.
In the Players Championship, Turner lost both of his first round matches against Matt Padgett (6-4) and Kevin Dowling (6-3), while in the second competition, Thompson was another victim of Fleetwood’s Newton, crashing 6-0 after beating Andrew Gilding 6-4.
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