SEARLE DISPATCHES HURRELL THEN MAKES BIRTHDAY CARD DASH

By Aaron Toubian

RYAN SEARLE dispatched James Hurrell and then shifted his focus on finding a birthday card for his wife.

World No. 20 Searle averaged 100.57 and hit 50 per cent of his doubles to defeat ‘Hillbilly’ 4-0, securing a place in the last eight at Ally Pally for the first time in his career.

The Devon thrower is remarkably still yet to drop a set in his run to the quarter-final of the World Championship.

Despite pocketing a massive £100,000, Searle was far from satisfied with his performance, still pushing himself to reach even greater heights.

He said: “It’s my partner Sophie’s birthday tomorrow. I’ve not got her a card or nothing, so I’ll get up early before she gets up and try and get her something.

“I’ve got two days off now, so I might go into London, have a look around, try not to spend too much money.

“Honestly, I thought that was rubbish. So to have 100 is massive. I don’t really know what happened then. Just threw a few darts and managed to win, so we’ll take it.

“If I feel like I’ve thrown well, I don’t know what sort of average I’ll hit and how well I’ll play.

“There’s a lot more to come from me and to do it here in the biggest stage in the world in front of these amazing crowd is what you can dream of. I’m just grateful.”

Searle will take on either Jonny Clayton or Andreas Harrysson on New Year’s Day.

He added: “I met Jonny in town earlier. I sort of said to him, you know, if we both win, we’ll play each other, and if we win, I’ll look forward to that, if not, I’ll play Andreas, and there both fantastic players on their day.

“I’ll look forward to it. If I play my game that I know I can play, there’s no reason why I can’t go all the way.

“If I didn’t believe that, and if other players didn’t believe that, there’s no point in being here.”

Image by Taylor Lanning.