Darting ace Jose de Sousa left fans perplexed after he scored zero on his first visit to the board against Rusty-Jake Rodriguez in the Players Championship on Thursday.
The world number 22 ranked star took on the Austrian Rodriguez – ranked 88th in the world – in the round of 32 at the 26th Players Championship of the year. Rusty-Jake is the brother of better-known Rowby-John, who is ranked number 48 in the world.
De Sousa beat Spaniard Jose Justicia in the opening round with Rodriguez beating James Wilson. But there was confusion during the Special One’s opening throw in the first leg of the game when the scoreboard showed him incredibly scoring zero.
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The scoreboard wasn’t a mistake with De Sousa scoring 140 and 60 with his next six darts. Fans took to social media as one asked “what happened???” for De Sousa to register a score of nil. A second fan commented: “Probably all 3 darts bounced out.”
But fellow fans got more creative with their reasons. One pointed at De Sousa’s love of hitting D20, with him previously nailing three darts at tops to checkout 120 in the Premier League in 2021. They said: “Probably tried to start with 3 tops and left them all on the top wire.”
Have you ever seen a score of zero in a darts match? Let us know in the comments section.
While a third suggested that the Portuguese still has a World Grand Prix hangover on his mind, the recently played major where the leg must begin with a dart in the double. They quipped: “Knowing Jose De Sousa he probably thought he was still playing in the World Grand Prix and attempted a double start.”
De Sousa was able to overcome his strange start as he battled to beat Rodriguez 6-5, later beating Jim Williams and Keane Barry before being knocked out by Ryan Joyce in the quarter-finals. Joyce went on to beat world number five Gerwyn Price 8-7 in the final, despite trailing for most of the match.
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