Justin Pipe’s time in Dublin began in perfect fashion as he secured his first PDC title in over two years at the 15th Players Championship event of 2014.
Pipe defeated World Champion Michael van Gerwen 6-5 in an entertaining final at the Citywest Hotel to seal his first tournament win since the Austrian Darts Open in April 2012.
Dublin has proved to be a happy hunting ground for Pipe in recent years after he sealed his first-ever ranking win three years ago at the same venue, while he also reached the semi-finals of the partypoker.com World Grand Prix in 2013.
And it would prove to be another successful day at the venue for Pipe, whose day began with a narrow 6-5 win over German ace Jyhan Artut.
The Taunton ace then secured consecutive 6-4 wins over John Part, Nigel Birch and Darren Johnson to seal his spot in the quarter-finals against Dean Winstanley.
The match with Winstanley would provide Pipe with his most comprehensive victory of the day as he ran out a 6-1 victor to set up what would prove to be a bizarre semi-final against Adrian Lewis.
With the game 5-3 in his favour, Pipe believed he had secured his place in the final when he finished 119 in the tenth leg – only to realise he actually needed 129 and still had ten remaining.
The miscount looked like it would prove costly as Lewis took out 100 to snatch that leg and finished a 14-darter to take the match into a decider, but Pipe would recompose himself to take out 61 for a 14-darter of his own as he set up a final against van Gerwen.
The world number one had defeated Dennis Smith, Max Hopp and Steve Beaton in his first three games to set up a quarter-final clash against Darren Webster, who had just come off the back of an extraordinary win against Phil Taylor.
Webster romped to a 6-0 whitewash win over the 16-time World Champion in a match which saw Taylor average 107 to his opponent’s 106, but the Norfolk thrower was unable to maintain his form against van Gerwen, who ran out a comfortable 6-2 victor.
Another comprehensive win would follow in the semi-finals for van Gerwen as he disposed of Northern Ireland’s Brendan Dolan 6-1 to seal his place in the decider.
After exchanging the opening two legs of the final, the pair then traded 14-darters before Pipe turned up the heat to open up a two-leg lead, finishing 125 for a break of throw to punish van Gerwen’s misses at tops before landing double two to move 4-2 up.
Van Gerwen showed his class with a ten-darter as he bounced back to take three of the next four legs and force the final into a decider.
Knowing that van Gerwen was on 138 to seal the win in his next visit, Pipe hit a superb maximum at the perfect time to crank up the pressure on the Dutchman and leave himself with 61.
Van Gerwen was unable to check out and Pipe duly stepped in to hit double four and seal his sixth ranking title, along with the £10,000 winner’s cheque.
The build-up to the partypoker.com World Grand Prix continues today with Players Championship 16, as the stars compete for a further £50,000 in prize money.