World Series of Darts May 19-21 2006 cont

The First Round
By the time Grossman was taking the stage I started final mental prep for my match. Most of the day I had just kept my arm loose and done 5minute spurts of real play to keep my mind focused. But now it was time to get my game face on.

For those that have never seen me play I try to focus all my energy inward and become very intense. Sometimes this is seen as unsocial or that I even appear angry. But I had decided for this tournament I was going to be 100% aggressive and play like I expected to win. I had no idea how I would feel when I got on stage but this was my mindset going into the match.

During Watkins match I was moved to backstage where 2 boards were setup for practice. As Slivan and Dudbridge took the stage, I knew it was only 30minutes or less until match time. Wayne and I took our final warm-up darts backstage and it was time to play.

The Walk On
They moved us upstairs for the introduction and walk on. At this point I was in full game mode and was completely blanked out. I hardly remember walking to the stage at all, I heard my name called and after that it was just loud cheering and music. I don’t think I even looked up going to stage and could have done a better job with the high fives but that was the last thing on my mind. I have no ideas what Wayne did but I think he ran ahead a bit.