Darts star nails nine-darter throughout opening leg as ref ‘tries to award him the match’

Darts ace Ryan Searle hit a nine-darter during the opening leg of his Players Championship 7 game but the referee almost incorrectly awarded ‘Heavy Metal’ the match

Ryan Searle hit a nine-darter during the opening leg of his Players Championship 7 game and was almost accidentally handed the game.

‘Heavy Metal’ took out the darting holy grail against World No.92 rank Josh Richardson in the first leg of the latest instalment of the Players Championship events, after the 37-year-old won the fourth event in the Netherlands.

Searle opened up with a 180 before hitting two more T20s to switch down to the T19 to hit 177 and leave 144. ‘Heavy Metal’ hit two more T20s before pinning D12 to complete the perfect leg.

As he walked to the board to retrieve his darts, Searle had his arm outstretched in celebration before he had to take a double glance at the scorer, who had incorrectly called “Game, shot and the match” instead of the opening leg in the first to six format.

Both players shared a laugh before fist-bumping each other. Searle then took a moment to compose himself before stepping up to throw for the second leg.

The World No.19 went on to beat Richardson 6-3 in his opening game before he was beaten by Ricky Evans 6-4 in the last 32 tie.

Two nine-darters were hit during a stunning night of the Premier League in Brighton, with Luke Humphries and Rob Cross both finding darting perfection. However, both players lost the games they threw the nine-darter in.

Speaking after the night, former world champion John Part called for a major rule change to be introduced where players who achieve nine-darters automatically win the game, regardless of the score at the time.

Part’s Sky Sports colleague Wayne Mardle dismissed the idea, seeing the Canadian suggest it would only work in best-of-11 matches, with set play competitions instead seeing the set automatically won.

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