When he needed it most, Unicorn ace Jamie Caven has produced the big performance on the big day.
Caven launched an 11th hour bid to reach the Players Championship Finals in Minehead next month.
At the 22nd and last Players Championship event of the year in Barnsley on Wednesday, Caven knew only a run to the semi-finals would book him a spot in Minehead.
And that's exactly what he did!
It was Caven's best result on the tour for 18 months. He may have lost in the semi-final 6-3 to James Wilson, but it was job done. After a 1st Round 6-3 win over Callum Loose, the Team Unicorn man beat World Grand Prix winner Daryl Gurney by the same score and followed that with 6-3 victories over Jimmy Hendriks and Adrian Lewis.
The quarter-final was win or bust and after a few nervy moments, he beat John Henderson in a last leg decider! Caven had done enough. He had qualified for Minehead.
It was also last chance saloon for Unicorn youngster Chris Dobey and he also managed to win through to the Players Championship Finals after reaching the last 16 on Wednesday. Dobey lost 6-4 to Henderson but squeezed into the 64 man field.
Unfortunately, the Unicorn quartet of Dimitri van den Bergh, Ted Evetts, Adam Hunt and Devon Petersen missed out.
Gary Anderson will be the fourth seed, with fellow Unicorn stars Joe Cullen, Ian White and Kyle Anderson seeded 8th, 9th and 10th respectively.
James Wade, Keegan Brown and Ronny Huybrechts have also qualified for Minehead.
This week's last two Players Championship tournaments of 2017 were won by Rob Cross and Jonny Clayton respectively. Cross beat Adrian Lewis 6-3 on Tuesday, while Clayton claimed a maiden PDC title with a 6-1 victory over James Wilson on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Michael Smith and Keegan Brown both reached the quarter-finals, with Cullen and Wade getting to the last 16. Meanwhile on Wednesday, Dobey, White and Smith got through to the last 16.
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Meanwhile Gary Anderson will start his bid for a third World Series title of the year against Max Hopp. The Unicorn star faces the hometown hero in the 1st Round of the German Darts Masters which starts in Düsseldorf on Friday week. He has already won in Dubai and Perth in 2017.
Kyle Anderson, who of course had that fantastic win at the Auckland Darts Masters, will play Mensur Suljovic and James Wade takes on German Kevin Munch.
German Darts Masters 1st Round:
Gary Anderson (1) v Max Hopp
Raymond van Barneveld v Stefan Stoyke
Peter Wright (4) v Dragutin Horvat
Kyle Anderson v Mensur Suljovic
Michael van Gerwen (2) v Martin Schindler
James Wade v Kevin Munch
Phil Taylor (3) v Robert Marijanovic
Daryl Gurney v Maik Langendorf
STUART PYKE reporting
Photo courtesy Lawrence Lustig / PDC
