• BDO World Championship

Harms and O'Shea set up semi clash

ESPN staff
January 10, 2013

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Former electrician Wesley Harms showed the necessary spark to down Darryl Fitton 5-2 and set up a repeat of last year's BDO World Championship semi-final with Tony O'Shea.

The pair hit twelve 180 combinations between them (eight from Fitton, six from Harms) but despite the Englishman edging the high scores he had no answer to the Dutchman's cold-hearted accuracy on doubles.

Bottom seed Fitton beat No. 1 seed Stephen Bunting in the last round, when he had to survive a period of supreme play from the top seed, but that experience was not sufficient preparation for his quarter-final.

Yet the 50-year-old looked capable of keeping pace with the 28-year-old at 2-2 in sets but after a break, Harms won six out of seven legs to take a commanding 4-2 lead from where he saw the game home.

Harms' imperious form kicked in early when he won the first set on a 161 checkout. Harms then went 2-1 up in sets when he faced his first and only true setback of the night in failing to win the deciding leg of the fourth set.

Sparky needed 70 to checkout and take a 3-1 lead, but The Dazzler hit a 180 to raise the pressure on his opponent's next throw. Harms seemed to feel the heat and his accuracy faltered leaving Fitton to hit a seven, err once on double four but nail it at the second attempt and make it all square.

Rather than shake Harms, it sharpened his focus and his six-out-of-seven leg purple patch followed on.

In a defiant response Fitton won the first leg of the seventh set yet Harms reeled him in. At 2-2 in legs, Harms pulled out a cool 69 checkout to progress.

He will now meet O'Shea, to whom he lost 6-5 in 2012, in the semi-final as the Silverback's quest to go one better than last year's final defeat is gathering pace after beating Robbie Green 5-3.

O'Shea had only dropped one set on his way to the quarter-finals but that total had doubled after an 86 checkout handed Green the first set.

But it proved a false promise for Kong's fans as Green, on the brink of taking a 2-0 lead, could not checkout, spurning eight darts in his attempt to do so.

That gave O'Shea the impetus to win the next three sets before finally being pegged back at 3-2. But the Stockport man won the sixth set despite missing five opportunities at double 18. The sixth landed where he wanted it to and although Green came back again to make it 4-3, O'Shea cruised the last set to win it 3-0 and book his place in the last four.

O'Shea lost to Christian Kist in the 2012 final and after beating Green he said he was in much better shape physically for the business end of this year's tournament.

"Last year against Christian I thought I was going to pass out at one stage and even though I am still sweating and I am a big lad, I have lost about a stone and a half now," he said. "I would have lost more but I had a good Christmas.

"We've used that word probably too often in the past but experience does count for a lot and I thought that [the match] was a perfect example of it."

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