Vincent van der Voort failed to capatilise on 'nervous' Phil taylor, says Wayne Mardle
And now The Power must improve under pressure to beat Raymond van Barneveld
Saturday 3 January 2015 16:37, UK
Wayne Mardle says Vincent van der Voort won't get a better chance to reach a World Championship semi-final after Phil Taylor was "there for the taking" in their quarter-final clash on Friday night.
Van der Voort failed to take advantage of the 16-time world champion's wobble in their last-eight match at Alexandra Palace and eventually succumbed a 5-3 defeat.
The Power charged into a 2-0 lead but the Dutchman would not wilt, winning the next three sets in response. The turning point came when Van der Voort failed to go 4-2 up. With Taylor 3-2 down, the world No 2 inexplicably missed eight darts at a double to take the set but Van der Voort failed to punish him and the ninth dart finally found the target.
Four-time World Championship semi-finalist Wayne Mardle told Sky Sports Darts that Van der Voort should have capitalised on a nervous-looking Taylor.
He said: "Full credit to Vincent van der Voort because I really thought he had the beating of him there. He did everything he had to do. The only thing where he went wrong was the sixth set. If he wins that it goes 4-2 and it’s a different game entirely and the complexion changes.
"Phil Taylor was there for the taking, only a 100 average – I know that’s good – but Phil Taylor looked so nervous, so edgy and for me, Vincent after this will think, ‘this was my opportunity to reach a world semi-final'.
"We said before that he had to improve his scoring and finishing and that’s exactly what he did but he just went missing at the wrong points – that’s the last leg of the sixth set and the last leg of the match."
Power under pressure
Taylor will now face long-time rival Raymond van Barneveld in Saturday's semi-final but Mardle warns that The Power must handle the pressure better to improve on his shaky performance against Van der Voort.
"When Phil Taylor is not at the races and playing badly (his darts) start to do this looping and that’s what started in that period when he was under pressure.
"In the next game he’ll be under more pressure than this, and the following game – if he gets through – he’ll be under even more pressure. He’s got to go back, it’s not a change of darts, but he’s got to rebuild his confidence because at that point it had gone, he was lucky that double eight went in because that second dart was so poor and he won’t get away with that.
"He just got worse and worse going for the doubles and the composure – everything that Phil Taylor is not – as in he’s normally composed and normally learns from the first dart, learns by his own mistakes – he learnt nothing there and for me, it’s not worrying but you expect Phil Taylor to rock up there and take the double out."
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