Daryl Gurney blown away by dominant Rob Cross in Exeter

‘Superchin’ was in danger of becoming only the tentth player in Premier League history to suffer a whitewash after the imperious Cross finding his form that led to him being crowed world champion in 2018.

He reeled off the first six legs on the bounce and denied Gurney a shot at a leg winning double.

Gurney managed to win the seventh leg and save the indignity of being blanked but ‘Voltage’ who was on the end of a 7-2 loss to Michael van Gerwen ended it in the next leg.

Cross missed D16 for a 102 checkout in the opening leg, Gurney had a sniff leaving a 110 but couldn’t make a dent in it and the Hastings player hit D8 on his return for a break of throw.

Gurney hit 134, 140 and 129 in the next leg but it was in vain as Cross took out 58 in two darts to double his lead.

The players exchanged 180’s in the third leg.

Gurney could not checkout at 91 and Cross punished with D8 for his second break of throw in the match.

Leg four saw another Cross maximum and a D16 finish.

Gurney was in with a chance in the fifth leg but Cross took out a 153 checkout on his favourite D18 for another break of throw.

Cross powered in scores of 140 and 162 in the next leg, another 140 left D4 and he cleaned in up on his next visit.

Gurney put his best leg together in the seventh leg to avoid the whitewash, and 180 and a 140 helped him to leave D10 which he hit.

Cross extinguished any hope of a Gurney comeback with scores of 180 and 134 before hitting D6 to clinch the match.

And Cross was pleased with his performance.

“Not sure what happened tonight but he didn’t really turn-up tonight. I don’t know what happened to him. I was pleased with the way I played and I got the two points. I tried to hard last week and tonight I was just myself.

Gurney will now face James Wade in Aberdeen next week.