Gary Anderson offers his brutally sincere evaluation on the brand new era of darts gamers after he made it by means of to the second spherical of the World Matchplay.
Two-time World Champion Anderson noticed off Luke Woodhouse 10-5 on the Winter Gardens earlier than calling on the following era to ditch their telephones and begin speaking with individuals.
Anderson, 54, is competing with 18-year-old Luke Littler and the opposite new wave of darts gamers at this 12 months’s occasion in Blackpool.
He mentioned: “I was sitting thinking the other day, having a talk with [Ian] White, [Adrian] Lewis, [Phil] Taylor, [Kevin] Painter, we used to sit and have a cracking laugh.
“These days, I might quite sit like this. No one talks to anyone. You do not have a very good chuckle, you do not have a little bit of banter. It’s essential to have amusing.
“Doesn’t matter what you do in life, on a building site, office, you’ve always got to have a laugh. Nowadays, there’s not much of that going about.”
The 2018 World Matchplay champion continued: “The kids are boring. Completely boring. You discuss to them, they’re too busy their telephone.
“They’re sitting on their phones with their b***** earphones in. Don’t talk to you. It’s a completely different life.”
Anderson had stopped the rot for the seeds after all of the ranked gamers misplaced in Sunday’s afternoon session, with Damon Heta, Rob Cross, Wright and Dave Chisnall all dumped out.
‘The Flying Scotsman’ added: “The youngsters, they’re here to do their job. They’ve realised they’ve got a great chance in life to make a lot of b***** money, buy their first house, then their second house.
“However they should relax and assume: proper, that is my job. That is it.”
‘Dream come true for Bunting’
World No 4 Stephen Bunting survived a dogfight with Ryan Joyce to advance with a 10-8 victory and arrange a conflict towards Anderson within the subsequent spherical on Tuesday.
Joyce got here from 8-4 all the way down to degree the competition at 8-8 when Bunting seemed to be distracted whereas seeking to shut out from 45, and was then a whisker away from going 9-8 up as he narrowly missed double 5.
Bunting responded with a 180 after which checked out from 41 to safe his progress, however couldn’t disguise his frustration.
“I’m so disappointed,” he mentioned. “We had a battle last year. Thankfully I’ve not gone the distance this year and I’ve saved a bit of energy for the next round.
“We go on we’re within the subsequent spherical. I actually sit up for enjoying once more. I will play Gary Anderson on this stage, it is a dream come true for me.”
‘The Bullet’ later spoke about facing an ageing Anderson. The 2014 Lakeside champion said: “He is in all probability inferior to he was three, 4 or 5 years in the past. He is a stalwart in PDC historical past, within the BDO after I used to play there too.”
Who will win the coveted Phil Taylor Trophy?
World champion Luke Littler, three-time winner Michael van Gerwen and Gary Anderson are nonetheless within the £800,000 occasion.
Sunday July 27 can even characteristic the fourth staging of the Betfred Ladies’s World Matchplay, that includes eight gamers competing throughout one session – with Beau Greaves having gained the 2023 and 2024 occasions.
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