Ross Smith has won the 28th Players Championship of the year. 'Smudger' thus heads confidently towards the European Championship that starts next Thursday.
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Finding his way past Damon Heta in the final 8-6, he believes he is at his consistent best ahead of Dortmund which was his crowning glory last year.
"I'm going in as a winner!" said Smith. "I'm reigning champion and the winner of this, so I'm really happy.
"I know I've got a hard game there, but I'm going to keep working hard on and off the board and do my best. That's all you can do.
"I'm playing really consistent darts. It's not often I feel like I drop below a 95 average and this week has been probably more 100-pluses than not.
"I feel nice and relaxed. I've played well this week and hopefully I can continue that into the Euros,"
"I felt like I played really well all day but in the semi-final against Dom I was a bit nervy," added Smith. "I'm glad to get through that one and I dug deep.
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"Damon took quite a bit of a lead [in the final] and maybe I relaxed a little bit instead of thinking about winning and maybe complicating it.
"I just thought about throwing and obviously it paid off there but Damon let me in."
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"I'm going in as a winner... that makes a change"
Hear from Ross Smith as he picked up a second Players Championship title of the year and and found his form at the right time ahead of the 2023 European Championship