Mickey Mansell continued the ‘year of the underdogs’ last night as he beat Cameron Menzies 16-15 in a deciding leg to progress to the semi-finals of the 2024 Grand Slam of Darts. Menzies showed his class during a tense deciding leg though with his gesturing to the crowd…
Professional darts in 2024 has been a wild ride.
We’ve had the emergence of Luke Littler, a darting sensation who has arguably brought more eyes to darts than anyone before. Luke Humphries looked like he could be the next Phil Taylor or Michael van Gerwen in terms of dominating the game.
We’ve also seen back-to-back PDC major titles be won by players ranked outside of the top 32. People are naming 2024 the year of the underdogs and the Grand Slam of Darts is continuing that trend.
Martin Lukeman and Mickey Mansell will face each other in the first semi-finals draw and it’s also a maiden PDC major semi-final appearance for both players who are ranked 45th (Lukeman) and 56th (Mansell) respectively in the PDC Order of Merit.
Lukeman beat Rob Cross 16-11 while Mansell had a much closer match as he went to a deciding leg against Cameron Menzies, eventually winning 16-15.
It was during this leg that gestures from Cameron Menzies caught the eye of darts fans watching on tv…
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Cameron Menzies Signals Crowd to Be Quiet During Deciding Leg
The 31st leg between Cameron Menzies and Mickey Mansell seemed to last a lifetime for those watching – and likely felt it for the pair playing as well!
With scores of 60, 41, 40, and 28 being thrown, it was clear there was a lot of pressure and the pair who were in their first ever PDC major quarter-finals match and what could be one of the biggest pressure matches both have ever played in.
With Menzies on a score of 58 and Mansell on 59, Mansell would have three darts to win.
As Mansell walked towards the oche, the noise in the venue rose drastically with whistles and roars which prompted an unexpected response from Menzies…
In the time stamped video above (provided by the PDC Youtube channel), we see Menzies put his darts down and gesture to the crowd to calm and quiet down for Mansell to throw.
A lot of players would be happy for the crowd to cause a distraction during such a huge moment but Menzies showed his class by trying to get the situation under control himself.
Mansell would hit a single 19 and double 20 to win the match but fair play to Menzies for his sportsmanship in that moment 👏
A similar situation happened the day prior as Mike De Decker faced whistling and shouting from the crowd during his match against Luke Littler.
Following the loss he revealed he was ‘annoyed’ that the officials or security didn’t intervene to regain order.
It shouldn’t be on the players to act in situations like this but you have to respect Menzies response, if there’s ever a ‘right’ way to lose a game, he demonstrated it!
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