Gary Anderson must be wondering what more he could have done after losing to Rob Cross despite hitting an average score of over 111.
The Scotsman threw eight 180s on his way to racking up an impressive 111.17 average at the Masters, yet still couldn’t find a way past Cross, who hit the same number of 180s and recorded a 112.32 average.
Cross won the Round Two clash in Milton Keynes by 10-6 in a thrilling encounter which will go down as one of the greatest matches in Masters history. Certainly as far as the stats go, this one tops the lot, with their combined match average totalling 223.49, setting a new Masters record.
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The previous record was held by Michael Van Gerwen (110.28) and Dave Chisnall (108.09) who scored a joint average 218.37. Cross himself hit the second highest average by a single player at the Masters in the contest.
He finished with a double 10 in the final leg moments after Anderson had hit his final 180 of the match. One fan commented on a video shared by the official PDC Twitter account of Cross seeing out his victory, writing: “The best Gary’s played in ages and he loses 10-6.”
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(Image: @OfficialPDC/Twitter)
Further stats show Cross was more accurate on hitting his doubles, tallying up a ratio of 77 per cent to Anderson’s 60 per cent. Cross had also scored two more rounds of over 140 than his opponent, though Anderson had hit eight more rounds over 100.
One fan summed up the events on Twitter, writing: “Gary Anderson averaging 111.17 and losing the match 10-6 is outrageous! Cross untouchable averaging over 112 himself. One of the best games I have ever seen.”
Another wrote: “That was one of the best games of darts I’ve seen in a while!! Gary Anderson didn’t do a lot wrong averaging 111 and 60% on doubles but Rob Cross unplayable. What a performance! Amazing game!”
Danny Noppert had earlier been the only other player to seal his passage to the next round so after beating Stephen Bunting 10-9.
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