Heavy Metal rules supreme in Leicester: Ryan Searle clinches Players Championship 28 in a tense final against Mario Vandenbogaerde

Ryan Searle came out victorious in Leicester to win Players Championship 28 after defeating shock finalist Mario Vandenbogaerde 8-6 in a closely fought battle. A whole host of top players travelled to compete in the event with the race to Minehead closing in, but many of them failed to take advantage.

En route to the final, Searle dumped out Ritchie Edhouse (6-4), Jamai van der Herik (6-2), Nathan Aspinall (6-5), Karel Sedlacek (6-5), Darren Beveridge (6-4), and Kevin Doets (7-4) to reach his second final of the year, and 18th PC final.

Super Mario took down a high calibre list of players to make his first ever PDC final. To get to the final stages, he defeated Michael Smith (6-3), Daryl Gurney (6-4), Nick Kenny (6-4), Ross Smith (6-4), Jermaine Wattimena (6-5), and Brendan Dolan (7-3). These results also saw him jump up into 41st in the race to Minehead, after lingering just below the top 64 before a dart was thrown.

Vandenbogaerde went the scenic route on 32, ending up on double nine to clinch an important hold after Searle missed on the outer ring to break. He soon tied the score, pinning double 10 after the Belgian missed at tops. This did not last long however, after Vandenbogaerde finds double 16 to level.

Super Mario comes close to taking a 4-2 lead but misses the bull by a small margin. Searle makes no mistake on double 10, before taking out 84 in three to place himself halfway from a maiden PDC title. The Englishman takes out 110 on double 18, before clinically taking out 92 in two, moving him 5-4 ahead and more importantly a break ahead of his opponent, whose scoring power was faltering slightly.

Double 10 would cause both players a lot of frustration in the 10th leg, with the pair missing numerous darts at the target. It would be Vandenbogaerde who cleans up first, moving up the board to double five to break back. A 16-dart hold of throw edged him ahead once more, but a much improved 12-darter from Searle kept him in it.

At 6-6, Vandenbogaerde missed two darts to go a leg away, with Searle nicking the advantage after brilliantly cleaning up 71 on double 10, and pins tops to take the title. Frustratingly for Super Mario, he had just hit a maximum to leave tops, but he never had a chance to go for it. Surprisingly, this is Seaele's first time winning multiple titles in a single year, breaking new ground as he looks ahead to the majors at the end of the year.