Turner on boost to ladies darts at WDF World Championship: "It's great to have some positive news especially with the women's game being in such limbo"

Laura Turner became the first WDF European champion in 456 days when the action resumed in Gibraltar last weekend alongside the MAD and JDC Virtual events which took place.

Turner, a former BDO World Championship quarter-finalist and known on both sides of the former darting divide for her commentary on Sky Sports Darts claimed the ladies title but was disappointed at the turnout with only eight players involved.

"I had a few reasonable games. The JDC Virtual event was a round robin to start off with, I won two of my games so I was quite pleased under the nerves, first game back and I had Dyson and on the streaming board as well," said Turner on the Inside the WDF podcast.

"But you get thrown in the deep end and see how you deal with it and I got through that bit, kind of slipped up in the Last 32 but quite glad to get a few wins and a few doubles under your belt.

"There was eight which was unbelievably disappointing. In the scheme of things, it was a last minute thing for the Gibraltar to tag it onto the MAD event, a lot of the people that qualified for the virtual they were guys. It was only me and one other woman actually playing in the adults version. It's disappointing but in the same thing, you've got to still beat the people in front of you.

"I'm still quite pleased to have just even a small field just to have got through a few games so hopefully as we get further along with the Covid crisis and things start levelling out, obviously there will be more and more people at future events."

'Big boost' to ladies darts announced - reaction from Turner

The WDF World Championship was announced recently which of course Turner will be vying to play in even more so now with a 'big boost' to the prize fund for ladies darts mooted by Chief Development Officer, Richard Ashdown on the same podcast recently.

While still sceptical on the fine details, Turner is glad to see some positive aspects of the ladies game after the demise of the BDO saw it go into limbo.

"It's great to have some positive news especially with the women's game being in such limbo. It'll be good going forward to see the qualification criteria but at the moment just to have a date and a target and a rough idea of what we have to do before, it'll be good. Having more women and more exposure is fantastic but it's how they fit that into that week period, it's really interesting."