Steve Beaton

Steve Beaton (born 5 April 1964 in Coventry, Warwickshire, England) is an English professional darts player for the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). He won the British Darts Organisation (BDO) version of the World Professional Darts Championship in 1996.

BDO career

Beaton made his World Championship debut in 1992, at a time when the world darts championship was still a unified tournament. He lost in the first round to Chris Johns, but he was encouraged by his performance in the same tournament in 1993 when he achieved a huge upset win over the tournament favourite and former world champion, Dennis Priestley, and he also beat another former world champion in Bob Anderson, before losing in the semi-final to Alan Warriner. He became a full-time professional later in 1993 at a time after the split, which saw the WDC players banned from all BDO tournaments - and Beaton went on to win the prestigious Winmau World Masters, beating Les Wallace in the final.

After the WDC (now PDC) players were expelled from all BDO tournaments in April 1993, it left Beaton as the top seeded player for the 1994 and 1995 BDO world championships, but he lost in the first round both times, to Nick Gedney and Dave Askew respectively, both times losing 2-3 after leading 2-0. This left some to wonder if Beaton had begun to rest on his laurels. But in 1996, he finally delivered at the BDO world championships, beating Co Stompé, John Part, Martin Adams, Andy Fordham and then Richie Burnett in the final to clinch the BDO World Championship.

When he defended his world title in 1997, Beaton was within the width of the Double 10 wire of reaching the final, but he lost to Marshall James in a tight semi-final match.

Beaton won many Open titles during his career in BDO tournaments including the Dutch, Danish, Belgian and Swedish Opens.

Beaton continued to play in the BDO version of the World Championship until 2001 (reaching the semi-final in 1997 and quarter-final in 1998) before switching to the Professional Darts Corporation in February 2001.

PDC career

Beaton has never made the same impact in the PDC, having failed to reach the quarter-finals in any of his attempts at the world crown, his best finishes being two Round of 16 losses in 2002 and 2004 when the tournament was still only five rounds. His poor form has seen him slip down the world rankings but always maintained a position in the top 32. Beaton has however reached the semi-finals in four major PDC tournaments, three of which took place before 2004 - the 2001 World Matchplay when he lost to Burnett, the 2004 UK Open when he lost to Roland Scholten, and the 2004 World Grand Prix when he lost to Warriner.

Beaton saw a rise in form in the 2009 season taking him even further up the rankings to 19th in the world. Beaton won his first title in almost nine years when he took the Players Championship in Nuland in October. He also finished runner up in the European championship beating the likes of Adrian Lewis, Mark Walsh and James Wade en route to the final where he was defeated 11-3 by Phil Taylor. This result however gave Beaton a place in the 2009 Grand Slam of Darts, where he progressed from the round robin stage courtesy of wins over Co Stompe and Kevin McDine before being comprehensibly outplayed by Simon Whitlock.

At the 2010 Grand Slam Of Darts Beaton produced a major upset by beating three-time defending champion Phil Taylor 16-14 in the quarter-finals, having trailed 13-9 and 14-11. Earlier in the week Beaton had needed to defeat Paul Nicholson 5-3 or better at the round robin stage to stay in the tournament (he won 5-1), and followed that up with a 10-6 win over Ted Hankey who had himself defeated Taylor in his group. Beaton was defeated by eventual champion Scott Waites 16-9 in the semi-final. Despite his good form in 2010 he was narrowly defeated in the first round of the 2011 PDC World Darts Championship by Mark Hylton eventually losing by 3 sets to 2. The following year, Beaton recovered from two sets and three match darts down against Magnus Caris to win 3–2, but was beaten by Simon Whitlock 1–4 in the second round.^[1]

In the rest of the major events in 2012, Beaton could not win more than one game in any of them with his best results being last 16 exits in the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and Players Championship Finals.^[2] On the PDC Pro Tour he lost in the semi-finals of the second Players Championship in a deciding leg to Dave Chisnall and also reached two other quarter-finals.^[3]

At the 2013 World Championship Beaton defeated qualifier Kyle Anderson 3–0, but was then beaten 4–2 by James Wade.^[4] After the tournament he was ranked world number 28.^[5] He reached the quarter-finals of a PDC Pro Tour event for the first time in six months in April at the seventh UK Open Qualifier, but lost 6–3 to John Part.^[6] At the UK Open itself, he lost 9–5 to Joey Palfreyman in the third round.^[7] He lost in two consecutive semi-finals in European Tour events during the year. The first of these came at the Austrian Darts Open where he missed four match darts at double 16 against Mervyn King to be edged out 6–5.^[8] The other was at the German Darts Championship where he suffered a 6–4 defeat against Dave Chisnall.^[9] He then won the German Darts Masters as he dropped only four legs in his first four games before averaging 100 in a 6–3 victory over Simon Whitlock in the semi-finals. He played Mervyn King in the final and with Beaton leading 4–3, King incredibly burst his score when on 134 by hitting a treble 20 with his final dart instead of a single to leave 40. Beaton stepped in to hit a 160 finish and, though the match went to a deciding leg, he was first to a finish to close the match out 6–5 and seal his first title for almost four years.^[10] At the World Grand Prix he missed one dart for the match in the first round against James Wade to be narrowly beaten by two sets to one.^[11] Another semi-final followed at the 12th Players Championship by seeing off Gary Anderson in the quarters before losing 6–2 to Kim Huybrechts.^[12] His surge in form during the latter half of the year saw him finish eighth on the ProTour Order of Merit to qualify for the Players Championship Finals, where he came back from 3–1 and 5–3 down against Wade in the first round to win 6–5.^[13][14] However, he averaged 81.41 in his next match against Wes Newton (almost 20 points lower than against Wade) and was beaten 9–3.^[15] He provided commentary for Eurosport for the 2013 Zuiderduin Masters a (BDO) British Darts Organisation tournament.

In the first round of the 2014 World Championship Beaton missed four darts to move 2–0 up against Devon Petersen and was instead beaten 3–1.^[16]

Stage persona

Beaton is currently introduced in the PDC as The Bronzed Adonis, a nickname derived from his tanned appearance. His appearance is maintained twelve months a year via his warm weather training camps in Playa de Las America, Tenerife. His entrance music is Stayin' Alive by The Bee Gees. Most recently, Beaton has taken part in a number of marathons in order to keep fit and raise money for charity, and Beaton has been referred to as The Marathon Man as a result. Beaton was once also nicknamed Magnum P.I. due to his likeness of the actor Tom Selleck, who played the title role in the TV series.

Personal life and interests

Beaton currently resides in North Walsham, Norfolk, where he lives with his wife Nanette, whom he married in 1993.

World Championship record

BDO

• 1992: 1st round (lost to Chris Johns 1–3)
• 1993: Semi-finals (lost to Alan Warriner 2–5)
• 1994: 1st round (lost to Nick Gedney 2–3)
• 1995: 1st round (lost to Dave Askew 2–3)
• 1996: Winner (beat Richie Burnett 6–3)
• 1997: Semi-finals (lost to Marshall James 4–5)
• 1998: Quarter-finals (lost to Raymond van Barneveld 0–5)
• 1999: 2nd round (lost to Steve Duke 0–3)
• 2000: 2nd round (lost to Andy Fordham 0–3)
• 2001: 2nd round (lost to Raymond van Barneveld 2–3)

PDC

• 2002: 2nd round (lost to John Part 0–6)
• 2003: 2nd round (lost to Dave Askew 3–4)
• 2004: 4th round (lost to Mark Dudbridge 1–4)
• 2005: 3rd round (lost to Andy Hamilton 2–4)
• 2006: 1st round (lost to Jan van der Rassel 0–3)
• 2007: 2nd round (lost to Terry Jenkins 3–4)
• 2008: 2nd round (lost to James Wade 3–4)
• 2009: 1st round (lost to Alan Tabern 0–3)
• 2010: 2nd round (lost to Andy Hamilton 1–4)
• 2011: 1st round (lost to Mark Hylton 2–3)
• 2012: 2nd round (lost to Simon Whitlock 1–4)
• 2013: 2nd round (lost to James Wade 2–4)
• 2014: 1st round (lost to Devon Petersen 1–3)

References

External links

• Steve Beaton official website
• Beaton's darts database