ProSieben Pro-Celebrity Tournament
Dusseldorf
Saturday 6th January 2018
The newly crowned William Hill World Darts champion Rob Cross was a semi-finalist in a Pro-Celebrity tournament in Dusseldorf, Germany on Saturday 6th January.
The light hearted event which was broadcast live on German channel ProSieben featured some of the worlds top darts players pairing up with German based celebrities.
This was the first time Cross had competed since winning the world championship on New Year's Day. 'Voltage' was partnered by Brazilian singer Fernanda Brandao as one of the eight pairs competing.
The eight pairs were split into two groups of four with the opening matches played on a round robin basis with group winners and runners-up advancing to the semi-finals.
Cross and Brandao were pitted into Group A along with reigning champions Michael van Gerwen and former footballer and wrestler Tim Wiese, Max Hopp and former footballer Stefan Effenberg as well as Gary Anderson and olympic gymnast Fabian Hambuchen.
Group B consisted of Peter Wright and tv presenter and comedian Ruth Moschner, the recently retired Phil Taylor and chef Frank Rosin, Raymond van Barneveld and musician H.P. Baxxter as well as Martin Schindler and YouTuber and rapper Marcel Scorpion.
Cross and Brandao won their opening two group matches 2-1, firstly beating reigning champions Van Gerwen and Weiss then Hopp and Effenberg. Having already qualified for the semi-finals they went on to lose their final group game 2-1 against Anderson and Hambuchen.
Van Gerwen and Weiss were eliminated at the group stage as they were also defeated by Anderson and Hambuchen.
Wright and Moschner came through Group B along with Schindler and Scorpion.
The standard of play from the celebrities was pretty poor, at times some of them struggled to hit the board with all three darts. Scorpion appeared to be the only one that could throw straight yet at times he was quite erratic.
In the end Scorpion's ability to throw a straight dart proved to be decisive as he went onto claim the title with Schindler, beating Cross and Brandao 2-1 in the semi-finals and then Wright and Moschner 2-0 in the final.
Wright and Moschner had earlier beaten Anderson and Hambuchen 2-1 in the other semi-final.
The semi-finals and final were due to be played over five legs but because of the closeness of most of the group matches the tournament over-ran well past the alloted tv scheduling time, hence the reduction to best of three legs.