Phill Nixon

Phillip Nixon (born 13 March 1956) is an English darts player from Ferryhill, County Durham. He is best known for reaching the 2007 World Final on his first appearance at the age of 50.^[1]

Darts career

Prior to his 2007 heroics, his best performances came in reaching the quarter-finals of the 2002 Winmau World Masters and the semi-final of the 2004 British Open.

After 20 years of attempting, 2007 was the first year Nixon had managed to qualify for the BDO World Darts Championship. Bookmakers had him as a 150-1 shot to win the title, before the event had started. Nixon came through three separate qualifying competitions at county, national and international level to secure his Lakeside debut. He beat number 7 seed Darryl Fitton, number 10 seed Martin Atkins and number 15 seed Paul Hanvidge to the reach the semi-finals and beat Dutchman Niels de Ruiter the number 11 seed for a place in the final against top seed Martin Adams.

He eventually lost 7-6 to Adams in the final but almost completed a great sporting comeback after looking beaten at 0-6 down at the interval. During the break whilst practising in the players lounge with a cigarette in one hand, Nixon was said to have stabbed himself deliberately in his legs to try and motivate himself. After the interval he found form and gradually reduced the deficit. Adams had been victim of some opponents producing dramatic comebacks in his previous 14 failed attempts at winning the world title and may have been vulnerable again. Adams missed four doubles to win the championship as Nixon gradually pulled back to level the match at 6-6, taking it to a final set. In the decider, Nixon missed a dart at double eight to win the first leg, and a further missed dart at double eighteen in the third leg gave Adams his chance to take his first world title. Nixon won £30,000 for his appearance in the final. After his run at Lakeside, he went on to reach the final of the Isle of Man Open (losing to Gary Robson) and the quarter-final of the Swiss Open.

On his return to Lakeside for the 2008 BDO World Championship he was drawn to face Adams again, in a repeat of their final from twelve months earlier, but this time lost 0-3. His form remained steady during 2008, reaching the quarter-finals of the Dutch Open and British Open and his debut at the Grand Slam of Darts saw him lose narrowly 4-5 to James Wade in his first group game. He then thrashed Niels de Ruiter, but allowed a 4-0 lead and a total of eight match darts slip and lost 5-4 to Pat Orreal, failing to qualify for the knockout stages. Nixon was also knocked out at the Group Stage of the 2008 Grand Slam of Darts, losing to Phil Taylor and Vincent van der Voort but defeated Andy Jenkins though it was too late for Nixon to qualify.

Despite reaching the quarter finals of the 2008 Dutch Open and British Open, he fell down the BDO rankings and didn't automatically qualify for the 2009 World Championship. He was back in his position from 2007 of having to win at least five matches to qualify for the event and lost to Henny van der Ster. He has also failed to qualify for the 2010 and 2011 World Championship

Outside darts

Phill is married to Suzanne (born 1969), they had been married for three years (together for eleven) at the time of his world final appearance in 2007. They have two children, although Phill has eight in total.^[2]

At the start of the tournament, Nixon's prime occupation was as a house husband. Nixon began to concentrate on his darts to a greater degree when he was made redundant.

References

External links

• Profile and stats on Darts Database