Raman on decision to play Lakeside as PDC Tour Card holder: "I never really thought about not playing"

Brian Raman entered this year's WDF Lakeside World Championship as number one seed and lived up to that billing in a superb opening performance against Johnny Haines.

"I'm feeling really happy. I've been really fortunate to win this game. The 180 in the last leg really helped me to get over the line. I think experience helped me a lot in this game, fair play to Johnny (Haines) he really gave me a go in this game," said Raman to Online Darts.

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"I didn't realise I won seven legs on the spin. I played really well in the end, he played really well in the last two sets and a half. I was just thinking just go away, give me an easy match to get over the line because the first match is always hard."

"It was always a tough game in the third round. You only get really tough games in the latter stages of tournaments, Jarred's playing really well so I look forward to playing."

He had to make the decision to play Lakeside as a PDC Tour Card holder and admitted it was never something he thought otherwise about.

"When I got the decision to make whether to play Lakeside or ProTours next weekend, I never really thought about not playing Lakeside because in the end, if you win this tournament you're World Champion."