"I’m determined to get through it” - Kevin Painter refuses to let dartitis end his career after Seniors Matchplay flare up

A much loved figure on the darting scene for more than two decades, Kevin Painter's very visible struggles with the dreaded dartitis during his match with David Cameron at the World Seniors Darts Matchplay last weekend were a tough watch for fans of 'The Artist'.

Eventually falling to an 8-3 loss to his Canadian opponent, Painter was visibly struggling to release his darts under pressure, despite a couple of standout displays of the former world finalist's determination, in taking out a pair of ton-plus checkouts.

Although he had been struggling in the weeks and months beforehand, Painter actually thought he'd managed to get rid of the dartitis curse through hypnotherapy provided by the PDPA. “In the practice room I was fine,” Painter told TNT Sports after his match against Cameron. “There was an outside chance it could have flared up but I didn’t expect it."

“It was a little bit worse than I thought but there was no way I was going to give up. It’s just one of those things I have to battle through," he continued doggedly. “I wanted to carry on, I had some good moments in the game, I missed a few doubles so it could have been slightly tighter but when you can’t get in any rhythm at all then it’s a struggle. I was hoping it was going to go a bit better than that."

As mentioned, whilst these aren't necessarily new issues for Painter, he had believed he was through the worst of it. “It had disappeared for month. I’d been doing a course of hypnotherapy for two months and it [dartitis] went," he explains. “Just over the last few days I’d had a couple of stutters here and there, and obviously as you saw on the stage there was another reaction to it.”

Nevertheless, Painter is determined to not let dartitis end his career. “You’ve just got to carry on. You try not to panic but your brain is not in control of what you’re doing. I'm thinking ‘throw’ and my brain is telling me ‘don’t throw’, it’s a really weird thing," he says. “Just throwing a dart at the board is the easiest thing in the world to do and when you’re struggling like that, it’s not good. Eventually I get it out of my hand and it goes exactly where I’m aiming it."

“Throwing at the top of the board is more of a problem, that’s why I was going for the 19s first to just get me going, then moving back up to the top of the board," concludes the former Players Championship Finals winner. “The top of the board is the problem getting your arm to go up high enough to release the dart. I’ll just carry on doing what I’m doing, I have audio tapes to listen to and I will carry on and it will go, the sooner, the better. I’m determined to get through it.”