Carlow’s Steve Lennon has advanced to the second round of the PDC World Darts Championship following a 3-1 victory against Madars Razma on Thursday afternoon.
Both players could not be separated throughout the opening two sets, with Lennon claiming the first before the Latvian held his throw to level proceedings.
The 2019 World Cup finalist’s experience proved vital as an edgy encounter failed to ignite the Alexandra Palace crowd.
Lennon will not care about the lack of atmosphere, however, as he secured the third set before crawling over the line in the deciding leg of the fourth set after missed opportunities from both players seemed to be the result of the enormous tension that comes with a tight affair in the biggest event the sport has to offer.
The local man has booked his spot in the next round where he will need a drastic improvement if he is to have any chance of defeating Poland’s Krzysztof Ratajski and ending his second round hoodoo at the World Championships.
“It was getting very stressful towards the end,” Lennon told Sky Sports.
“The heat on stage was unbelievable. Darts were starting to slip out of my hand. When I went for the single 17 [in the last leg], it literally slipped out of my hand.
“That was going through my mind, all I wanted to do was hit the winning double and be off the stage as quick as I could.”
Both players missed the board entirely with some of their throws during that decisive leg, and the 28-year-old admitted that incidents like that added to the already immense pressure on him.
“That was bad, yeah,” said Lennon.
“It put more pressure on me going for the next throw because I was like, ‘Please don’t let it happen again’. Instead of worrying about going for the double and winning the match, all that was going on in my head was, ‘Don’t let the dart slip out of my hand’.”
‘The Shamrock’ reflected on his year on tour to date following the victory, but stressed that the World Championship is always the most important event of the calendar irrespective of what has come before it.
“I was playing really well up to May of this year,” said Lennon.
“Then, there was a bit of a break, which did not help me at all. I had a different mindset after May. Instead of being really confident – because in Germany, I played quite well – my mindset went back to just, ‘Win a game’.
“That ruined my year a bit. I had a lot of first round exits. All that was going through my head was, ‘Make sure of the World Championship’. Once you are here, anything can happen.”
Steve Lennon will face the number 12 seed Krzysztof Ratajski in the final game of Friday afternoon’s action in London.
