Scottish Open success for Harms and Ashton

Wesley Harms and Lisa Ashton won the 2019 BDO Scottish Open singles titles at the Normandy Cosmopolitan Hotel in Renfrew earlier tonight.

Harms repeated his 2013 victory in this competition by beating New Zealand’s Cody Harris 6-5 in a high-quality final, averaging 98.8 and landing four maximums.

Harms started the final like a house on fire, moving 5-1 up in short order. Harris, who won his first leg with a 119 bull checkout, proceeded to win four legs on the bounce to force a decider, surviving multiple match darts in the process. It was Harms who held his nerve though, firing in a 13-dart leg to secure his first ranking title of 2019 and a move to the top of the latest BDO rankings. Harms pockets £3,000 for his weekend’s work, with Harris taking home £1,500.

The men’s competition resumed at the last 32 stage on Sunday, with Harms seeing off Nick Fullwell, Craig Venman and 2019 BDO World Youth Championship finalist Nathan Girvan to set up a semi-final with former PDC tour card holder Jamie Caven. Against Jabba, who was playing his first BDO competition in about 15 years, Harms struggled with his doubles but had enough to run out a 5-2 winner.

Harris, a two-time PDC World Championship participant, recorded whitewashes over Neil Macdougall and Wes Newton before coming back from 4-1 down to beat Nick Kenny 5-4 in the quarter-finals. Harris then produced some astonishing darts against Mark Barilli in the semi-finals, going 5/7 on the doubles and averaging 96.4 in a 5-0 win.

Harris would taste victory in the men’s pairs competition alongside Brazilian Diogo Portela, who defeated top seed Jim Williams on his way to the last 16 of the men’s singles, as they beat the Dutch tandem of Chris Landman and Martijn Kleermaker 3-2.

In the ladies competition it was Lisa Ashton who came out on top, securing her first Scottish Open title with a highly impressive 5-1 win over Fallon Sherrock. Ashton went 33% on her doubles and averaged 85.01 in what transpired to be one-way traffic in a final between the two top ranked players in the ladies game. For that win, Ashton earned £1,000, with Sherrock trousering £450.

Ashton reached the final courtesy of a scrappy 5-3 semi-final win over Deta Hedman. Ashton suffered some double trouble early on as the first four legs went against the throw before she reeled off three consecutive legs to book her meeting with Sherrock, who downed an out-of-sorts Maria O’Brien in the other semi-final 5-2.

Hedman was able to make up for her singles disappointment by hitting the winning darts in the ladies pairs competition alongside Beau Greaves. The duo, who were playing together for the first time, swept aside all comers in the earlier rounds before beating Ashton & O’Brien 3-2 in the final.

Aside from the final four, the standout performer in the ladies competition was Roz Bulmer. The former World Trophy semi-finalist, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy, made the quarter-finals before losing 4-0 to Ashton.

Most of the BDO’s big names will now have a few days to regroup before heading off to Slovakia next weekend. In addition to the Category A Slovak Open competitions, won by Scott Waites and Fallon Sherrock last year, there will also be the Category B Slovak Masters, offering players another opportunity to pick up valuable ranking points.

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