Brandon Weening and Joanne Hadley both claimed title doubles this past weekend as the WDF tour returned to Alice Springs, Australia for a pair of Silver-ranked tournaments.
Weening doubles title tally to rocket up Lakeside race table
Brandon Weening took two huge strides towards following in the footsteps of his father Wayne Weening on the Lakeside stage by winning both the Ivy Hampton Memorial and Billie Hill Memorial in Alice Springs.
The 25-year-old, nicknamed 'The Python', kicked off his weekend of dominance with victory in the Ivy Hampton competition.
Having topped his group with three wins from four, Weening beat Geoff Ramsbotham, Scott Mitchell and Danny Porter for the loss of just three total legs to set up a final meeting with Peter Machin.
Machin drew first blood in the title decider, taking out 121 for a 12-dart leg. He only won one more leg from that point though, Weening firing in outs of 115, 130, and 144 as he ran out a 6-2 winner with a 94.05 average.
Weening and Machin faced off again in the final of Sunday's Billie Hill Memorial after they'd defeated Aaron Morrison and Dylan Salmon respectively in the semi-finals.
In their second meeting of the weekend, Weening was again impressive, reeling off five legs on the spin as he defeated Machin 6-1 with a slightly lower average of 90.44.
Hadley ends title drought with a brace of triumphs
Over the past 15 months, Joanne Hadley had reached eight WDF ranking finals but had come up on the losing end on each occasion.
That changed in Alice Springs and just like the adage of London buses, as soon as a first title in five years came along, she added another one just 24 hours later.
Hadley's title drought ended in the Ivy Hampton Memorial. Having beaten Lyn Morrison in the semi-finals, Hadley faced fellow Australia international Amanda Loch in the final.
It proved a back-and-forth affair, with Hadley taking an early 2-0 lead before Loch turned the tables by winning four of the next five legs.
Loch broke Hadley's throw to force an 11th and deciding leg and the nerves crept in for both players, with each woman missing multiple darts to win. On this occasion, the luck went with Hadley as she got over the line by taking out 20.
Sunday's Billie Hill Memorial provided another nail-biting final, this time between Hadley and Kym Mitchell. Hadley won the opening leg but found herself 5-3 down as Mitchell, who made her Lakeside debut last year, proved more clinical on the outer ring.
Hadley clicked into gear at 5-3 down though, winning legs in 21 and 20 darts to force a decider. Mitchell had the stronger scoring in the last leg but on that occasion it was Hadley that was more clinical, pinning double 16 to win it 6-5 and take her career WDF title tally to three.
