TheOche.com

Photo Bryan Haraway/PDC

PHIL TAYLOR began the defence of his PartyPoker.net Las Vegas Desert Classic title with a 6-3 victory over Jamie Caven at the Mandalay Bay Resort.

Taylor headed to Las Vegas struggling with a back problem, but showed few ill-effects to dispose of the qualifier from Derby.

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by Phill Catterick:

PHIL TAYLOR will be hoping to follow up his success at the UK Open in Bolton with another tournament win in Las Vegas next week for the annual Desert Classic.

`The Power` is the defending champion after defeating James Wade in last year’s final, and he has to be the firm favourite after winning every major competition on the calendar this season except for the Premier League, which James Wade inherited after defeating Mervyn King in the final at Wembley Arena in May.

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RONNIE BAXTER defeated Phil Taylor 6-2 to win the Las Vegas Players Championship.

Baxter picked up his first tournament win of 2009 with the £6,000 title at the Mandalay Bay Resort, condemning Taylor to only his second Players Championship loss of the year with a fine display.

Having been pushed all the way to a deciding leg by Japan’s Morihiro Hashimoto in the first round, he then defeated Davis Snider, Wayne Mardle, Kevin Painter and John Part to reach the semi-finals.

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FORMER champion Peter Manley was amongst the final six qualifiers for the PartyPoker.net Las Vegas Desert
Classic on Monday.

Manley, the 2003 winner, had to enter the qualifiers at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas after dropping
outside the world’s top 16 recently.

However, he bounced back from the disappointment of a defeat to Shane O’Connor on Sunday by winning through 24 hours later.

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DUTCH trio Jelle Klaasen, Vincent van der Voort and Co Stompe were amongst the first six qualifiers for the PartyPoker.net Las Vegas Desert Classic on Sunday.

Almost 200 players travelled to the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas in a bid to win the 12 qualifying places in the main Desert Classic event, which begins on Wednesday.

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by Phill Catterick:

THE PDC has announced that a third-fourth placed play-off will be introduced for the 2010 ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship.

The final will be held on January the 3rd, and the aforementioned match will be the `sequel` to the main event-presumably to make the evening much longer and to provide viewers and visitors to more than just one match.

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A THIRD-FOURTH place play-off will be introduced at the 2010 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship.

The battle between the losing semi-finalists at Alexandra Palace will be the pre-cursor to the £1 million event’s final on Sunday January 3.

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MARK WALSH tasted Players Championship victory for a second successive weekend with a final-leg defeat of Andy Hamilton in Sunday’s German Darts Trophy.

Walsh won a third title of 2009 with triumph in Barnsley last weekend, and picked up a further £6,000 in Dinslaken with a narrow win against Hamilton.

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ANDY SMITH picked up his first Players Championship victory since 2007 with a 6-5 win over Colin Lloyd in the final of Saturday’s German Darts Trophy.

Smith had not picked up a tournament win since October 2007 in Scotland, but hit a nine-darter in ending that run in Dinslaken.

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