2025 WDF World Cup – Day One

With the opening day completed, the US team experienced mixed fortunes in Seoul.

The Open Team event saw the Americans qualify for the knockout rounds – but boy, did they make hard work of it! They went to a 17th leg tie-breaker on no fewer than THREE occasions (against Thailand, Iceland,and Gibraltar), but emerged victorious each time. The match against Thailand was particularly rewarding, as we recovered from a three leg deficit to win five of the last six legs.

The Open Team event concludes on Friday morning.

The women, meanwhile, were engaged in pairs action. Cali West and Tracy Feiertag sadly fell at the first hurdle, going down in a seven-leg thriller against the Northern Irish duo of Kayleigh O’Neill and Helen Dunn. It could have been a very different outcome, as Cali and Tracy gave up leads of 2-1 and 3-2, and then missed six darts from 63 in the decider.

Paula Murphy and Aaja Jalbert won their first two matches without dropping a leg, and then beat the highly-fancied Welsh Pairing of Leanne Topper and Rachel Kingdon to reach the last 16. The Scots Susannah McGimpsey and Louisie Paterson were expected to provide a stiff test, but again, the Americans won pretty comfortably by a score of 4-1. Unfortunately, that was where their quest for Gold came to an abrupt halt, as they went down to the Slovakians, Martina Sulovska and Maria Kormancikova.

That just leaves the youth. It’s always tough for the American kids in these events, as they don’t have the opportunity to compete regularly against quality opposition. Despite a fantastic effort, Tim Welcome and Jeremy Demers failed to safely negotiate their round robin group in the Open Pairs. At least they have the experience behind them as they head into the other youth events this week.

In the girls’ singles, Alexis Achgill met a fate similar to the boys, as she was unable to make it to the knockout stages. However, a superb series of displays saw Nalanie Tirrell win her group with a superior leg advantage after a three-way tie. In the last 16, Nalanie was up against the Finn, Iida Lanko. It wasn’t to be, but seeing that Iida not only went on to reach the final, but has the top overall average in the singles, it certainly was a stellar performance by Nalanie.

Full details from the above can be found on DartConnect

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