The Philippine darting community celebrates with pride the Top 16 achievement of Lourence Ilagan and Christian Perez at the recently concluded My Diesel Claim World Cup of Darts, held from June 15 to 18 in Frankfurt, Germany. This is the second time that the Philippines has advanced from the first round of eliminations and marched into the Top 16 of the prestigious world team event of the Professional Darts Corp. (PDC).
Veteran Filipino darters Perez and Ilagan impressed the darting community after the duo waylaid Paul Lim and Harith Lim of Singapore, 4-1 on their first game in the first round of eliminations of the event that drew 40 countries.
Ilagan and Perez played an average of 82.70 against 78.38 of the Lim-Lim tandem. Ilagan dominated scoring production with three 180s and a scoring average of 116.8. Meanwhile, Perez checked out three of the four matches, with 52 as the highest checkout.
Later that same day, Ilagan and Perez overpowered the 13th seed Czech Republic, composed of Adam Gawlas (World Rank #49) and Karel Sedláček (World Rank #99) to finish the round at 4-1 and seal their spot in the playoff round.
The Filipino duo averaged 86.03 versus the Czech rivals’ 75.00. Ilagan delivered the numbers with a scoring average of 101.2 while Perez, fresh from an impressive quarterfinal finish in the PDC Players Championship in Hildesheim, checked out all four matches with 86 as his highest checkout, which he closed with a double bull.
In the Top 16 playoffs, Ilagan and Perez faced Scotland’s Peter Wright (World Rank #2) and Gary Anderson (World Rank #22), both former World Champions. The Filipinos delivered an impressive opening performance to lead by 2, but later fell short as the Scots gained momentum to win 8-5.
Scotland played an average of 89.01 while the Philippines came close with 87.91. The team for former world champions further advanced to the finals, beating France in the quarterfinals and Germany in the semifinals. Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton of Wales emerged as champions of the World Cup of Darts 2023.
Source: National Darts Federation of the Philippines (NDFP)
