Players Championship 5 Leicester Round-Up | Seventh heaven for Ross Smith, dominates Chris Dobey in rampant final win

Players Championship 5 took place on Tuesday afternoon in Leicester with Ross Smith sealing his seventh title on the ProTour in the fifth event of the season taking down one of the forerunners this season so far in Chris Dobey 8-2.

A 104 average, five 180's and a high checkout of 147 for 'Smudger' who took advantage of early misses to get ahead of Dobey and gave him too big of a mountain to climb. Smith has his first Players Championship title since October 2025 with a second event to come tomorrow, the sixth of the year overall.

An 85 checkout from Smith saw him seal an opening break in a bright start from 'Smudger'. A superb 147 checkout from Smith saw him go 2-0 up.

Dobey was left frustrated as he missed a chance to hold and Ross Smith hit double 10 to break for 3-0. Double nine saw him surge to go halfway to the finishing line.

Five darts, five misses for Dobey as Smith pinned double eight for another break at 5-0. Dobey broke back and missed 170 for 5-2 down. But he returned.

He bust 25 and Smith got a shot at 108. He missed double 14 and Dobey got a let off. He pinned double eight. Double 10 for Ross Smith saw him go two away but he sealed the win from there from 6-2 up superbly denting any resolve on Dobey's side.

Smith secured the win from there hitting 140 to leave 62 which he pinned on his throw after Dobey had missed 170 to stay in the tie. But 'Smudger' was pinpoint in sealing the win as Dobey just had too big of a mountain to climb.

Dobey in reaching the final saw off Joe Cullen in the semi-final 7-4 with a 99 average and hovered around the mid 90's range most of the day. He saw off Christian Kist 6-0, Danny Noppert 6-5 but perhaps his best performance of the day was Kevin Doets.

'Hawkeye' zoned in with a 108 average but he still didn't manage to beat Dobey who averaged 103 in winning narrowly 6-5. This came after wins over Ricky Evans and Cristo Reyes to start the day.

Smith on the otherhand averaged 95 to start the day as he saw off Justin Hood 6-3 then it was Cor Dekker who was beaten by 'Smudger' with a 103 average. His best display of the day was also in the round of 32 as he saw off his fellow namesake Michael Smith 6-1 with a 106 average.

Niko Springer was then beaten 6-2, Dave Chisnall in one of 'Chizzy's most promising runs for a while was beaten also 6-3 before he then took down Karel Sedlacek 7-4 like Dobey's win and also a similar average so very much the final that on paper was deserved given their respective levels over the day.

No Michael van Gerwen, Luke Humphries, Luke Littler today for reference and Gerwyn Price, Josh Rock and Jonny Clayton all lost very early so the top three names on paper left in the event all suffered early exits but still we got a quality line-up.