{"id":190998,"date":"2025-12-14T07:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T07:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/190998\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T07:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T07:17:07","slug":"legend-lim-71-lights-up-ally-pally-with-stunning-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/190998\/","title":{"rendered":"Legend Lim, 71, lights up Ally Pally with stunning win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Lim rolled back the years at Alexandra Palace as the 71-year-old beat Jeffrey de Graaf to book his place in the second round of the World Darts Championship.<\/p>\n<p>The Singapore Slinger, who in 1990 hit the first nine-darter at the championships, claimed a stunning 3-1 victory over Sweden&#8217;s number one ranked player, becoming the oldest darts to win at the sport&#8217;s premier competition.<\/p>\n<p>The previous oldest player to win a round was Northern Ireland&#8217;s John MaGowan in 2008 when he was 67.<\/p>\n<p>Lim will face 2023\/24 winner Luke Humphries, a player he beat at the tournament five years ago, who eased passed Ted Evetts on a 3-1 scoreline.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So I hope on a given day it can happen again&#8230; but I never give up. He is good but he can be beaten,&#8221; Lim said. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">LEGEND LIM WINS AT THE WORLDS \ud83d\udc4f<\/p>\n<p>At 71-years-old, Paul Lim beats Jeffrey De Graaf 3-1 to book his place in Round Two.<\/p>\n<p>Absolute LIMS at Ally Pally \ud83d\ude4c <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/d5FY52i2ww\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/d5FY52i2ww<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OfficialPDC\/status\/1999938855617581116\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 13, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Earlier, in the afternoon session, two-time champion Gary Anderson edged through his first-round clash, getting the better of Adam Hunt 3-2.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson is a threat to the favourites this year and, with the tournament moving to a new, bigger stage at the same venue as part of a new deal in the future, he wants to remain in the mix.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I got over the line, if you think, you lose,&#8221; he said of his win. &#8220;If you think and get into it, it\u2019s not good for you \u2013 you try not to think.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is what it\u2019s all about. I just want to keep going so I can get a shot on the new stage next year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere in the afternoon session on day three, Andrew Gilding beat Cam Crabtree 3-1, Luke Woodhouse saw off Boris Krcmar by the same score and David Davies whitewashed Mario Vandenbogaerde 3-0.<\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Lim rolled back the years at Alexandra Palace as the 71-year-old beat Jeffrey de Graaf to book&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-190998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}