Scott Waites won the BDO World Championship for the second time after beating Canada’s Jeff Smith 7-1 in the final at Lakeside.
The 38-year-old, who first won the title back in 2013, raced into a 5-0 lead to move to within two sets of lifting the trophy again.
Smith gave himself hope of a comeback with a stunning 161 checkout to win the sixth set, before then charging into a 2-0 lead in the next set.
However Waites reeled off three legs in a row to steal the seventh set, and then fired in a 156 checkout in set eight to move to within a leg of victory.
And the number nine seed, who won the Grand Slam in 2010, hit double 16 in the next leg to seal his second world title in the space of four years.
Waites had suffered early exits at the Lakeside in the two years which followed his first world title win, but showed signs early on in the tournament that he was getting back to his best.
A 96.06 average saw him beat Willem Mandigers 3-0 in the first round, and it ended up being the highest average recorded during the entire tournament.
Waites then produced a remarkable comeback in the last 16, coming from 3-0 down to beat Belgium’s Geert de Vos 4-3.
And the comebacks were not done there, as Waites battled back from 3-1 and 4-2 behind to beat number one seed Glen Durrant 5-4 in a pulsating quarter-final on Friday.
A 6-1 thrashing over Jamie Hughes in the semi-finals saw him advance to his second Lakeside final, where an 87.54 average was enough to see him beat Smith 7-1 and become only the eighth player to win the Lakeside men’s title more than once.
lovethedartsmag.com 