GREAVES BECOMES FIRST WOMAN TO WIN PROTOUR TITLE

BEAU GREAVES was overcome with emotion and shed tears after making history as the first female player to win a ProTour title.

Beau n Arrow defeated Michael Smith 8-7 in the final to lift the Players Championship 11 crown in Milton Keynes and the £15,000 top prize.

The Doncaster thrower averaged an impressive 96.49 and produced a stunning 142 checkout to seal the win, leaving Smith stranded on double 10 after a nail-biting contest.

The women’s world No.1 averaged a whopping 105.56 to dispatch former world champ Gary Anderson 7-1 in the semi-final, having earlier averaged 102 to edge past Rob Cross 6-5 in the last eight.

Greaves admitted she could hardly believe what she had achieved after her historic breakthrough.

She said: “I can’t believe it. I was up a fair few legs and I started to think about it. It caught up with me.

“I don’t know if I thought about being the first woman to do one. I can’t believe I hit that. I can’t believe I took out that.

“I have had a great year but I would never have thought I would win one. I had a good run last week and I said to the lads I sit on the table with that I felt like I hadn’t played well but I was getting results.

“Today I felt like I played really well. I am so happy I can’t even describe how I feel.

“To have won on the Dev Tour, Challenge Tour, PDC Women’s Series, I am so proud of myself because I was struggling so bad at the start of the year, really bad. I can’t believe it.

“I’m beating players that I watched growing up. It is just amazing and I am really proud of myself to win one of these.

“Now I am going to try and kick on and win more of these.

“Besides winning Lakeside this is my greatest achievement. Hopefully I can kick on and do well on the tele as well.”

Elsewhere, Luke Humphries crashed out in the last 32 after a 6-5 defeat to Max Hopp, while reigning European champion Gian van Veen also exited at the same stage, going down 6-3 to Andrew Gilding.

Image by Taylor Lanning.