LOURENCE ILAGAN won an all-Philippines final of the DARTSLIVE - THE WORLD Soft Darts Championship, defeating Christian Perez 4-1 to take the $1 million HK first prize.
The two-time PDC World Championship qualifier was crowned as the World Soft Darts Champion as he came through the field of the top 100 players from the DARTSLIVE rankings following eight stages of THE WORLD during 2013 at the Grand Final.
Held at the Kowloon Bay International Trade & Exhibition Centre (KITEC), the two-day event initially saw the lower-ranked players bidding to win through to the second day's final stages, where the top 64 played down to the champion.
Ilagan overcame Stephen Bunting 3-1 in the quarter-finals and then saw off American Randy Van Deursen 4-2 in the semi-finals.
The final saw Perez win the opening leg of 701 and also led the second leg of 701, but paid the price for missing five doubles to win the leg as Ilagan levelled before winning the next two legs of Cricket.
Perez led the next leg, of 701, but was unable to finish 135 and Ilagan took out 133 with two bullseyes and treble 11 to seal the win.
"I feel so happy," said Ilagan. "I felt as I was carrying the whole of the Philippines on my shoulders, I'm so glad to have won.
"I want to thank all the Philippine people for supporting me, especially my wife. I put in a lot of work to get here - I practice 8 hours a day and have played darts half my life.
"Perez is a good friend of mine, he is younger than me and often asks me for advice, I'm sure he will be champion one day."
Perez, who was left to take the runner-up cheque for a second successive year, had defeated Paul Lim in the quarter-finals and Croatia's Boris Krcmar in the semi-finals.
For more details about DARTSLIVE and THE WORLD Soft-Tip Darts Championship, please visit http://darts-theworld.com
DARTSLIVE - THE WORLD, GRAND FINAL
SOFT DARTS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 2013
December 14-15 2013 – Kitec Centre, Hong Kong
Winner: Lourence Ilagan (Philippines)
Runner-Up: Christian Perez (Philippines)
Semi-Finalists: Boris Krcmar (Croatia), Randy Van Duersen (USA)
Quarter-Finalists: Paul Lim (Singapore), Stephen Bunting (UK), Benjamin Dersch (USA), Morihiro Hashimoto (Japan)
Last 16: Takehiro Suzuki (Japan), Scott Kirchner (USA), Ronald Briones (Philippines), Haruki Muramatsu (Japan), Kei Usami (Japan), Kenichi Ajiki (Japan), Thanawat(Thailand), Royden Lam (Hong Kong)
Last 32: Yuji Eguchi (Japan) Tony Martin (UK), Mitsumasa Hoshino (Japan), Alain Abiabi (Philippines), Adrian Gray (UK), Edward Santos (Philippines), Atsushi Matsumoto (Japan), Hirokazu Osaki (Japan), Celso Parfan (Philippines), Chris White (Canada), Shingo Enomata (Japan), Harith Lim (Singapore), Yuta Miyamoto (Japan), Joseph Domanais (Philippines), Richard Espinoza (USA), Haze Leung (Hong Kong)
Last 48: Scott Mackenzie (Hong Kong), Ray Carver (USA), Rob Modra (Australia), Sho Katsumi (Japan), Ryan Condat (Philippines), Cheung Pui Hong (Hong Kong), Ken Touzawa (Japan), Deng Yin (China), Jose Justicia (Spain), Larry Butler (USA), Cyril Blot (France), Wilfred (Philippines), David Fatum (USA), Norhisame (Malaysia), Park Hyun Chul (Korea), Gregor Gorjup (Slovenia)
The Final - Leg-By-Leg
0-0 - Perez wins the bull and throws first.
0-1 - Perez wins 701 with a 121.80 average to Ilagan's better 139.50 average.
1-1 - Ilagan starts the 2nd leg of 701 poorly and Perez is first to the double and looks to be cruising but misses five darts at the double and proves to be a turning point in the match, Ilagan wins with a lackluster 117 average to Perez's 138.75.
2-1 - Ilagan wins the first cricket leg with a 6.67 average to Perez's 6.17 average.
3-1 - Perez starts first but it's all Ilagan, who wins with a 5.75 average to Perez's under par 3.75 average.
4-1 - Perez starts the 701 game but fails to check out 135 (leaving 80), Ilagan needs 133 to win and hits bull, bull, T11 to win the match - finishing on a 139.33 average to Perez's 141.50.