Deta Hedman recovered from her recent Lakeside disappointment in style to beat Jo Clements 5-4 and win the Scottish Open for the sixth time in her illustrious career.
Hedman struggled to find her scoring range in the early going, Clements capitalising by breaking in the third as she went 3-1 up.
The WDF World No.1 responded, though, winning the next three legs to go 4-3 up and move within one of victory.
Clements had missed darts to go 4-2 up but made no mistake in the eighth, taking out 40 in three darts to draw level. The two were neck-and-neck after nine darts in the deciding leg but Clements’ subsequent visits of 30, 45 and 57 were punished by Hedman, who sealed victory on double eight with her fourth match dart.
The battling qualities that Hedman displayed throughout the final were also on display in the quarter-finals when ‘The Heart of Darts’ came from 3-1 down to dump out the defending champion Aileen de Graaf 4-3.
Outside of that game and the final, Hedman dropped just one other leg all weekend, which was in stark contrast to the battles Slovak Open champion Clements had gone through to reach the title decider.
World Champion Beau Greaves was unbeaten in 18 WDF ranking matches before her quarter-final meeting with Clements and looked set to make it 19 when she raced into a 3-0 lead. She missed a slew of match darts though and Clements was able to capitalise, winning four consecutive legs to advance to the last four.
It was a similar story for her in the next round as she went 2-0 down and had to survive multiple match darts before pipping Lakeside runner-up Kirsty Hutchinson in a last-leg decider.
SORCE –WDF
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