Nathan Aspinall ‘loses focus’ as fans start booing seconds before World Championship win | Other | Sport

Nathan Aspinall had to overcome mass booing in the final stages of his third-round match at the PDC World Championship before sealing a win over Andrew Gilding. ‘The Asp’ was not at his best but managed to prevail 4-0, despite clearly becoming distracted in the final leg.

Needing 178 to close out victory, he hit two treble 20’s, but did so amid loud jeers in the Ally Pally.

Aspinall appeared confused over whether the boos were aimed at him, and actually looked at the crowd before smiling wryly and trying to reposition himself for this third dart.

Sky Sports Darts commentator Stuart Pike said “He’s got to focus now, whatever’s going on in the crowd…” However, a clearly rattled Aspinall, who needed a single 18 to leave double tops, then threw his effort wide of the board to score no points with his third dart.

“That’s exactly what can happen,” continued Pike. “All he added to do was hit a single 18 to leave tops and he just lost concentration. He lost focus there.”

It was unclear what the crowd unrest was over, but mercifully for Aspinall, the error didn’t come back to haunt him. On his next visit he did hit 18 and then nailed double top to make the lst-16 at Ally Pally for the first time since 2019.

After his win, Aspinall opted not to talk about his momentarily lapse. Nor did the star seem concerned about the lacklustre contest, having set up a clash with German player Ricardo Pietreczko on Monday.

“I don’t care about numbers, and I don’t care about averages,” he said, with his own hovering at just over 92 during the match. “And yeah, it’s England Germany.”

The 33-year-old celebrated passionately after completing his win, and explained that he was making a conscious effort to be more motivated on a stage. ” I think thr last six months I’ve been very flat when I’ve been playing,” he admitted.

“So I made a concious effort tonight to get that fire lit in my stomach again. And I think you’ve seen it from the off, I was giving it a bit more emotion and that was for myself, to try and get adrenaline going.

“It wasn’t my best performance, but listen I’m very happy. And I’m sure my kids are happy too because we’re going to Winter Wonderland tomorrow now.”