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Three-time former champion beaten 5-3 by world No 52Rob Cross fights back from four-set deficit to win 5-4The hurricane that blew the great Michael van Gerwen out of the world championship did not materialise in a single evening, or a single tournament, or a single year. Arguably these shocks are no longer even as shocking as they once were, back in the days when Van Gerwen was at his imperial peak and the pyramid of talent beneath him was far narrower. And so the story of Scott Williams’s famous 5-3 triumph was really the story of modern darts in microcosm: a sport with no safe places, no certainties and no guarantees, no fealty to reputation and no respect for history.At the moment of the greatest victory of his life, having played the match of his life, Williams walked calmly across the stage, savouring the cheers and the boos in equal measure. The world No 52 from Lincolnshire has always been a cussedly divisive presence among the darting public, a big snarling yapping dog of a player, whose entire persona is essentially based on a magnificent disrespect. Earlier in the tournament he celebrated a febrile win over Germany’s Martin Schindler by boasting about England having won “two world wars and one World Cup”, for which he later issued the world’s least sincere apology. Williams is basically the fishing emoji in human form. Continue reading...