Gerwyn Price and Benito van de Pas win Players Championship events
Sunday 22 May 2016 18:39, UK
Gerwyn Price and Benito van de Pas claimed their second Players Championship titles of the season with wins in Coventry over the weekend.
Price came into the weekend having won the last Players event in Barnsley and he added a second consecutive title when claiming the honours and the £10,000 top prize at the Ricoh Arena on Saturday.
With the world's top four players absent following Thursday's Betway Premier League Play-Offs and ahead of the Dubai Duty Free Darts Masters - it was former rugby player Price who set the standard averaging over 108 in the final against Jamie Caven who made a welcome return to form.
Price beat Terry Temple, Dirk van Duijvenbode, Mervyn King and Cristo Reyes to book a place in the quarter-finals and his last eight encounter with ninth seed Mensur Suljovic was to prove his toughest test of the day.
The 31-year-old came through 6-5 against the Austrian before beating Ronnie Baxter in the semi-final to set up a meeting with Caven who beat Paul Milford, Simon Stevenson, Matthew Dennant, Scott Dale, Andy Jenkins and third seed Dave Chisnall on route.
Price proved too strong in the final winning 6-1 with his 108 average too much for Caven, who averaged 101.
Sunday's event and top prize was claimed by Dutchman Van de Pas who was also a winner in Barnsley earlier this year when he beat Michael van Gerwen in the final.
The 23-year-old whitewashed Joe Cullen 6-0 in the final to claim the first prize having seen off Christian Kist, Andy Boulton, World Youth Championship runner-up Nathan Aspinall and Jason Wilson to back the last eight.
Van de Pas then eased past Justin Pipe 6-3 to set up a semi-final meeting with Darren Webster who he saw off 6-1.
Cullen's run to the final was impressive beating Simon Preston, Andy Hamilton, Antonio Alcinas, Andrew Gilding before the notable scalps of Dave Chisnall in the quarter-final and Steve Beaton in the last four.
However, the youngster will have to be content with the £6,000 runners-up prize and a second ProTour final after running into an inspired Van de Pas in the final.
