Newton eyes 'favourite'
event
World number five aiming to impress on home soil
Wes Newton: looking forward to competing in his
'favourite' event (from skysports)
Wes Newton is looking forward to competing in his
'favourite' event at next week's World Matchplay in Blackpool.
It
is the home tournament for the 34-year-old as he lives eight miles up the Fylde
coast from Winter Gardens.
Although
the world's number five has not enjoyed great success in Blackpool,
he loves the party atmosphere of the event.
Newton reached the
quarter-finals last year after wins over Andy Smith and Justin Pipe only to
lose to a red-hot Phil Taylor.
"I've
always gone to watch it since I was a kid, and even though I've not had my best
results there it is my favourite." ——Wes Newton
Favourite
"It
is my favourite event, with it being my home tournament," said Newton. "I've always
gone to watch it since I was a kid, and even though I've not had my best
results there it is my favourite.
"It's
a bit of a party atmosphere. There's a lot of holidaymakers in Blackpool in the summer as well as the darts fans, and
they're all enjoying themselves.
"It's
a very scenic arena. It's not very long but it's wide so the crowd are right on
top of you, which adds to the atmosphere.
"The
best feeling I've experienced was being called out the first time I qualified
for the World Matchplay in 2006. You always wonder what it would be like and it
was really good.
"I've
got a lot of family and friends who come and support me - it's hard to get
tickets for them all sometimes! I get a lot of support so it would be nice to
have a good run this year."
Improvement
Newton raced into a three-leg lead
against Taylor
only to claim one of the next 16 legs, something that left the local favourite
in shock.
Newton added on Taylor: "I was 4-1 up and he won nine
legs in a row and 15 of the next 16 in
total - I was shell-shocked!
"If
we played again it would be in the semi-finals in Blackpool,
which would be an improvement on last year.
"I'll
just take each game as it comes because I've got a lot of hard work to do
before I can think of the semi-finals or Phil."
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