Michael Smith has claimed back-to-back PDC Winter Series titles after edging past Jose de Sousa in a deciding leg thriller.
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Smith ended his two-year wait for a title yesterday and showed his confidence by going back-to-back denying De Sousa a second title of the year.
De Sousa began proceedings on double one after they had both kicked off with a 180. Smith replied with double five to make it 1-1.
But De Sousa cruised into a huge lead with back to-back legs in the form of an 11-darter and 13-darter to make it 3-1. From there he held to make it 4-1 with another 11-darter.
De Sousa missed five darts at doubles and Smith took out 65 to trail 4-2 from there. Smith hit double 10 though to reduce the arrears to 4-3 and keep himself in proceedings with a chance at parity.
Smith cleaned up 65 to make it 4-4 from there. De Sousa was first to a finish but Smith got himself down to 82 and cleaned it up in style with a 12-darter to go into the lead 5-4.
De Sousa hit back with a 12-darter of his own with an 82 checkout to make it 5-5. They continued to share the legs with it poised at 6-6.
It went all the way to a deciding leg and with De Sousa not able to pin 140, Smith was left 25 and pinned double 10 letting out a roar in delight.
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Quarter-Finals
Gabriel Clemens 1 | 6 Michael Smith
Vincent van der Voort 6 | 0 Darius Labanauskas
Brendan Dolan 3 | 6 Joe Cullen
Jeffrey De Zwaan 5 | 6 Jose de Sousa
Semi-Finals
Michael Smith (101.1) 7 | 3 (96.2) Vincent van der Voort
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