Luke Humphries produced one of the performances of the Czech Darts Open weekend to end Beau Greaves' historic Prague run, defeating her 6-2 on Saturday night with an average just shy of 109. The defending champion, who was unsure only 48 hours earlier whether he would travel to Prague due to a shoulder injury, admitted that anything below his best could have left him vulnerable against the history-making Greaves.
Greaves had made history on Friday by becoming the first woman ever to win a PDC European Tour match, following her debut in Budapest a week earlier where she averaged 104.88 in a 6-5 defeat to Rob Cross. Her breakthrough came against Daryl Gurney, but Humphries insisted he treated the match as a contest against one of the strongest players in the field. "She's a woman, of course, everyone knows that, but she's just a great darts player," he said. "When you come up against her and play against her, you don't look at her as a woman. You look at her as a fantastic darts player."
Humphries added: "She's taken away the mould from that sort of situation because if I'd lost today, I wouldn't have been disgraced. It's not like I've lost to a woman. I've lost to a really good darts player, and that's it. There's no disgrace losing to her. I think she's brought that on herself and made it very normal. She is just a fantastic player." The 6-2 scoreline was emphatic, but Humphries felt the quality Greaves produced demanded the level he reached himself. "Anybody else tonight, maybe she wins," he added. "But I was just on form. I knew I had to play that well to beat her, and I did, because if I didn't play as well as I did, I would have lost."
Humphries' performance was made more remarkable by the shoulder issue he had been dealing with before the tournament. "Again, I've got a slight injury in my shoulder and I wasn't going to be here 48 hours ago," he revealed. "I seem to play better when I've got an injury, so it's really weird. But I knew I had to play well there. She's an amazing player and she pushed me all the way. It was just a couple of bits at the end there that got me through." The problem appeared without an obvious trigger, reminding him of a similar issue around the Grand Slam last year. "It's like the Grand Slam last year. I woke up in the morning, got out of bed and it had gone again," he explained.
Humphries credited his physio John with helping him get into a position to travel, admitting he had still been doubtful on Thursday. "I have to give a massive shout-out to my physio John on Thursday, who really worked hard, because I wasn't going to come here on Thursday. But I saw myself in the draw and I thought, I can't let the fans down." The shoulder is still not fully right, but Humphries has no intention of easing off in his bid to retain the Czech Darts Open title. "It's still not the best, but it is what it is. I seem to play well when I've got injuries, so it's really strange. But I'm here and I'm going to be fighting for the title, because I've seen my name up there three times in five years and I'm like, I want it again. That's why I'm here." Andrew Gilding now stands between Humphries and a place in the quarter-finals on Sunday, after Gilding beat Nathan Aspinall 6-2 in the second round.
