Gates wins WDF tournament in United States and keeps hopes alive for Lakeside participation
WDFSunday, 17 September 2023 at 17:15
Leonard Gates on Saturday won the Witch City Open in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. 'The Soulger' did good business with an eye on possible participation in the WDF World Championship.
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Gates did not concede a single leg in his first three duels against Eric Weeks, Erik Alves and Brian Doherty and then also defeated Jon Foreman (4-3), Ethan De Veyra (5-4) and Rick Fortin (5-4) for a final spot. In the final match, Gates was then 5-4 too strong for Kevin Luke.
With this final victory, Gates retains a good chance of qualifying for Lakeside. The American is not currently seeded but is now approaching the qualifying spots via the so-called "reserve list".
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Witch City Open 2023.
Quarterfinals
Leonard Gates 5-4 Ethan De Veyra
Rick Fortin 5-3 Bruce Robbins
Lorne Langlais 5-2 Gino Florian
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Kevin Luke 5-0 Paul Pilch
Semi-final
Leonard Gates 5-4 Rick Fortin
Kevin Luke 5-3 Lorne Langlais
Final
Leonard Gates 5-4 Kevin Luke
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Kieran WoodDarts Journalist
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He contributes to DartsNews.com, where he covers professional darts through news, match reports, analysis, and live coverage across the PDC calendar and major tournaments.
A key part of his work is on-site reporting from leading events. Kieran has covered the PDC World Darts Championship in person, reporting daily from the venue and providing first-hand insight from the tournament. During his coverage, he has conducted interviews with leading players including Luke Littler, Luke Humphries, and Gerwyn Price.
He is also one of the leading voices of the English-language Dartsnews Podcast, contributing regular analysis and discussion on developments across the professional darts circuit.
In his reporting, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles when new, verified information becomes available.
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- If he can be bothered? He won't play darts in Germany yet he'll go over and get an award!??rick6702-09-2026
- Why is this the main story? He chose not to compete in loads of tournaments,yes he's number 1 in the world,but he does have to turn up at tournaments! Play the next world championship in Dortmund and see if he turns up!!rick6727-08-2026
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- I appreciate that littler is a fantastic player,but the top 3 articles are about him. Before he'd thrown a dart in the tournament. Level it out a bit, Taylor and van gerwen soon got disliked as the media could only see them,and nobody else seemed to matterrick6725-08-2026
- The two-point Lucky Loser qualifiers are Ross Smith, Robb, Whitlock, Sakai, Ilagan and Toylo. Jermaine is not on the entries list on Dartconnect for the TCH qualifier so the four from the main OoM are probably Searle, Nijman, Dobey, Wattimena.Scoobedybop24-08-2026
- The two-point Lucky Loser qualifiers are Ross Smith, Robb, Whitlock, Sakai, Ilagan and Toylo. Jermaine is not on the entries list on Dartconnect for the TCH qualifier so the four from the main OoM are probably Searle, Nijman, Dobey, Wattimena.Scoobedybop24-08-2026
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