Christian Kist has landed an incredible nine-darter at thePDC World Championships. After the first set of his clash with Madars Razma was forced into a deciding leg, the Dutchman sent the crowd into raptures by hitting seven successive maximums, followed by a double-19 and then double-12.
It wasn’t enough to win Kist the match, with his Latvian opponent then taking the next three sets to book his place in round two.
However, the 38-year-old will go home having having earned huge a cash bonus, not only for himself but a fortunate fan as well.
Main PDC World Championship sponsors Paddy Power have pledged to pay out £180,000 every time a star lands the perfect leg. Kist gets £60,000, and the same amount not only goes to Prostate Cancer UK, but also a lucky spectator, in this case a man called Kris from Sutton.
Speaking afterwards, the 28-year-old revealed his tickets were a present from his grandparents, Stuart and Pauline, and admitted he wasn’t even fully clued up on the competition when he arrived. “I knew about it but I wasn’t 100% sure if it was random,” he said.
“I didn’t know whether you needed to sign up, but we found out that you did to be entered into it, but you don’t expect to win it still, do you? I turned round to my grandad and said ‘seriously, is it me?’ I was like ‘oh my god’, this is mental.
“I just kept thinking ‘this can’t be real, it can’t be me’. Then everyone started looking at me – it took a while! Me and my grandad both looked at each other and said ‘what next? When is it getting announced?’ They kept not saying who, so we didn’t know when it would be announced. It’s just surreal.”
Kris, who is a train guard manager, working for South Western Railway based at Wimbledon, was asked what time he’d be clocking in tomorrow, he joked: “Depends what time I get home.”
Kist has reportedly earned just £19,750 in ranking tournaments over the last two years. His payout for his feat tonight has more than tripled that figure, while also earning him a place in tournament folklore.
The 38-year-old, who has only got past the first stage at Ally Pally once since his debut in 2015, is the first player to throw a nine-dart leg in the current world championship so far. A year ago, he was in the headlines for a defeat to a then 16-year-old Luke Littler, with few envisaging that the teenage star would go on from there to reach the final.
As the crowd went wild, he initially appeared to be restrained in his celebrations, before doing a double fist pump in the direction of the audience. His opponent also congratulated him as the pair briefly embraced on stage.
