Jonny Clayton claimed his first ranking title of the year by beating Luke Humphries in the Swiss Darts Trophy final.

Welshman Clayton began the day by beating Rob Cross 6-4 in the last-16 stage, returning to beat Karel Sedlacek 6-2 at the start of the evening session before a 7-4 semi-final victory against world number three Gian van Veen took him to the final.

World number two Humphries, who progressed in Basel with wins against Krzysztof Ratajski (6-0), Cristo Reyes (6-3) and Mensur Suljovic (7-4), was hoping to add to his recent success at the World Grand Prix.

However, world number five Clayton had other ideas and claimed an 8-4 victory in the Euro Tour event to also secure a place in November’s Grand Slam of Darts.

The players had almost identical averages – 101.75 for Humphries and 101.68 for Clayton – but it was the latter’s finishing that proved decisive as he claimed victory with a run of four successive legs from 4-4.

Clayton, who hit six 180s compared to four from his rival, had a checkout success of 61.54% compared to just 22.22% from Humphries.



–