70-year-old Paul Lim and Harith Lim into World Cup of Darts for tenth time on behalf of Singapore

There are three certainties in life; you die, you have to pay taxes and the duo of Paul and Harith Lim competing on behalf of Singapore at the World Cup of Darts. They qualified for the country's 10th tournament on Sunday.

That Singapore was going to compete in this year's World Cup of Darts was not a certainty. The Asian country did not receive an automatic invitation from the PDC. Only China, Japan, Hong Kong, Bahrain and the Philippines could claim direct entry.

The PDC has decided that a total of eight Asian countries will be allowed to compete in the World Cup of Darts. Five spots were thus automatically given away, the remaining three spots were distributed at a qualifying tournament.

In that qualifying tournament, Singapore qualified first for the country tournament. Paul Lim and Harith Lim won over successively South Korea (4-3), India (4-1), Malaysia (4-0) and Thailand (5-3) to force qualification.

The two Singaporeans have been there at the World Cup of Darts almost every year since 2014. Only in 2020 were Paul Lim and Harith Lim not there. They had qualified that year but could not travel to Europe because of the corona pandemic.

Over the years, Singapore has never been a high-flyer at the World Cup of Darts. They regularly survived the first round, but then the second round was the end station. Only in 2017 did Paul Lim and Harith Lim manage to reach the quarterfinals. At that edition, they first provided a huge stunt by defeating Scottish world champions Gary Anderson and Peter Wright. This was followed by wins over Cristo Reyes and Toni Alcinas, before the fairy tale came to an end in the quarterfinals against Belgian duo Kim Huybrechts and Dimitri van den Bergh.

The 2024 World Cup of Darts is scheduled for June 27-30 in Frankfurt. Welsh duo Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton are the defending champions at the World Cup of Darts.