Painter sets up chance for Taylor retribution

Kevin Painter earned the chance to gain revenge for his dramatic defeat against Phil Taylor in last year's PDC World Championship final when he beat Andy Jenkins yesterday in Purfleet.

"The Artist", who lost only in a sudden-death leg to Taylor at the Circus Tavern last January, won 4-3 against his good friend Jenkins to secure a rematch with the 11-time world champion, this time in the quarter-finals. "I'm not firing on all cylinders," admitted the 37-year-old from Cambridgeshire, who none the less took a clean sweep of the final set. "I've got a lot of personal problems at the moment and I can't clear my head so I'm struggling a bit.

"But I can dig in when I need to and Phil knows I will give him a tough match again tomorrow."

Veteran Bob Anderson also made the quarter-finals as he brought "Rocket" Ronnie Baxter down to earth, prevailing 4-2.

The 57-year-old from Somerset lost the first two sets but then produced some blistering form to stay on course to emulate his semi-final achievement of last year. "I'm actually playing better than I was 16 or 17 years ago but I've got to because the game has progressed so much since then," Anderson said.

In the last fourth-round match, the battle of the two remaining qualifiers went the way of Andy Hamilton, who recovered to beat Josephus Schenk of the Netherlands 4-1.