Peter Wright has backed himself to win the second UK Open title of his career despite losing 12 of his 28 matches so far this year. Darts legend Wayne Mardle believes ‘Snakebite’ is in the worst form of his life after a series of underwhelming performances in tournaments and the Premier League.
Wright’s Premier League Darts nightmare continued on Thursday evening. After making the long trip down to Exeter, he was beaten 6-4 by the night’s eventual winner Nathan Aspinall in the quarter-finals.
That makes it five weeks of Premier League action without Wright winning a single match, and he is the only one from the eight-player line-up that’s yet to register a point. The results don’t seem to have dented the Scotsman’s self-belief, however.
Speaking to Sky Sports’ Love The Darts ahead of the UK Open, Wright was asked who he thought was the player to beat. “I want to say something but people will say ‘oh, here he goes again’,” he responded.
“I think I’ll probably win the UK Open. I was thinking while I was throwing darts [in practice], I hit another nine-darter. You could name another 20 players who are actually on form at the moment, they could potentially win it.
“But I think I’ve got the right mindset and my game is near enough there. I don’t want to show too much before I go and win it.”
The 158-player event gets underway on Friday, with Wright and the rest of the top-32-ranked players entering the fray in the fourth round. Teenage sensation Luke Littler will also be in the fight for the £110,000 top prize, which was claimed by Andrew Gilding 12 months ago.
Four-time World Darts Championship semi-finalist Mardle spoke out on Wright’s struggles back in February, telling Sky Sports: “He got absolutely annihilated by Stephen Bunting [at The Masters] and the darts were changed again. Here’s my theory: maybe he thinks he should go back to his old faithfuls, the gold darts. Maybe he will.
“But what if they don’t respond? What if he still plays poorly with those? Where does he go from there? You can’t keep blaming the darts, it’s always the human throwing them. Yes, some darts won’t suit you. Not a lot has gone right for Peter in the Premier League in general, and now he’s probably – I sound like a real doom-monger here, wow – he’s in the worst form of his life.”
Just like he did ahead of the UK Open, Wright stuck his neck out with regard to making the Premier League Darts play-offs after getting thrashed by Michael van Gerwen in front of his home fans in Glasgow.
“Practice has been going really well and stuff like that,” he said. “Maybe in a couple of weeks it might start coming out properly in the Premier League. I’ll finish in the top-four, definitely.”
