Maria and Lisa in exciting new doubles partnership

PARTNERSHIPS become strained at one time or another and sport is no different, so following disparities between Maria O’Brien and Deta Hedman, the duo have now decided to go their separate ways.

Plymouth’s golden girl, who has now risen to World No.9 following her run to the semi-finals at the BDO Lakeside World Championship, will now partner the four-times singles world champion, Lisa Ashton, in top doubles events at home and across Europe.

The Dutch Open is the biggest darts tournament in Europe which boasts a total prize-fund of 33,350 Euros and across all events a total of 5,857 players have registered with more than 3,000 in the men’s singles event alone.

The ladies’ pairs will begin at 10.30 am on Friday and the new partnership’s first opponents will be the Dutch duo of Wendy Oude Sogtoen and Danielle Reede-Scholman.

The following day, 367 of the best lady darts players on the planet will begin their assault on the title and Maria will open her account against Holland’s Gwendy Veneman.

Should matches go to form, Maria would compete in the final of board 12 against the former winner of the Women’s Darts Trophy and Women’s World Masters, Karin Krappen for a place in the last 16.

Lisa warmed up for her assault on the Dutch Open title when she made her debut on the PDC Challenge Tour at the weekend.

There was a total of 272 players all chasing order of merit points and from the four events, played over two days, Lisa made the last 64 in three of them, which gained her 150 points.

In the10 matches that she played Lisa hit a total of 17 maximums, achieving 10 legs in 15 or under and winning six of them.

Her top average was 93.1 and finished the weekend with an overall average of 82.19

Lisa, who claimed the title of this event in 2016, will play on board 1 and her first match will be against the winner of the tie between Germany’s Christina Schuler and Sandy Vogt.