JAMES WADE HAS DONE IT!! 🤯 That is absolutely INCREDIBLE from James Wade. He recovers from 15-12 down to beat Josh Rock and reach the Semi-Finals. An absolutely granite performance under the pressure from Wade 👏 📺 bit.ly/GSODLive #GSOD | QF
James Wade survives four match darts to prevail in epic Grand Slam of Darts quarter-final against Josh Rock
PDCFriday, 17 November 2023 at 21:45
After an absolutey thrilling tie, James Wade became the first player to qualify for the semifinals of the Grand Slam of Darts. 'The Machine' needed all of his bottle to handle the tension better than Josh Rock, who missed four match darts for victory himself.
It was a clash between two styles of play. The experienced Wade, master at finishing, against the rising talent Rock with his scoring prowess. The statistics showed that. Rock threw more than twice as many 180 scores as Wade, but on the finishes Wade was world class. The Englishman achieved a phenomenal finishing percentage of 64 percent (16/25) versus Rock's 41.7 percent (15/36).
The beginning of the match was for Wade, who managed to take a 3-0 lead with three 15-darters. Before the break, 'Rocky' closed to 3-2, but then Wade managed to create another gap. An 11-darter and a 104 finish gave him a 7-4 lead. With a 12-darter, 13-darter and an 81 finish, he quickly came back to 7-7. But then there were three misses from 36, which allowed Wade to take an 8-7 lead anyway with a 48 finish.
A 12-darter then brought Wade to 9-7, before Rock connected with a 156 finish to make it 9-8. However, the Northern Irishman then again left five doubles unused, giving Wade the opportunity to throw out 60 for 10-8. Still, Rock went into the break with a tie after a 14-darter and a 102 check-out for 10-10. After that, Rock took control by taking the first two legs of the fifth session. However, with three missed darts on double 16, Rock failed to make it 13-10. Wade threw a 14-darter for 11-12, but then Rock ran out to 15-12 via an 80 finish, 69 finish and a 13-darter.
Wade was allowed to start the 28th leg and with a 126 finish he began his comeback. In the 29th leg, 'The Machine' crawled through the eye of the needle for the first time. Rock missed a matchdart on tops from 80, after which Wade threw out 25 for 14-15 and then levelled the score with a 17-darter. Rock started the last leg but it was Wade who was first to get a matchdart in the deciding leg. From 121, the left-handed darter missed the double 14 by a millimeter. Rock, meanwhile, was on tops and had three more chances to reach his first semifinal on a major. The first arrow on tops fell well above it, but the last two were missed on the wire. This gift was unwrapped by Wade, who then managed to hit double 3 for a spot in the last four.
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