Darts star Montgomery targets Masters success

DARTS star Ross ‘The Boss’ Montgomery is gearing up for the Winmau World Masters next weekend, but he’s not sure if his first round opponent will turn up.

The 45-year-old from Greenhills has been putting in the practice ahead of next weekend’s televised tournament and he admitted he’s not sure if his first round opponent will make an appearance.

Ross, who is due to face Indian Nitin Kumar on December 5 at the event in Yorkshire, said: "I’m quite happy with the draw I’ve got overall, but I’m not sure if my first round opponent will turn up. It sounds weird, but experience tells me that guys who have got so far to travel don’t end up making it.

"It’s the World Masters and they send out invitations to people from all over, but there’s been plenty of times when guys haven’t turned up because they don’t have the money to travel to England.

"I don’t know much about the guy, but I hope he turns up. I want to play my matches, but on the other hand he could be dangerous because he is an unknown, so I will have to be careful if he does show up."

Ross, who is ranked sixth in the world rankings, just missed out on automatic qualification for the last 16 of the tournament and has to play four matches before making it to the televised stage.

The Winmau World Masters involves players from seventy countries, including darts champions from over 140 national and international events worldwide.

Around 300 players will attend this year’s event, which will mark the 35th anniversary of the oldest established major event in world darts.

And Ross is targeting the televised stages of the tournament after negotiating some tricky early matches.

He added: "If I win my group then I would be looking at facing Gary Robson in the last 16, but it’s going to be difficult because there’s plenty of darts to be played before I get there.

"But I’m feeling good about my game at the moment – I just won the Liberton Open in Edinburgh after beating Mike Leitch – so everything’s going well. I’ll be putting in a lot of practice before I travel and I’m hoping for a good showing at the Winmau."

There was some other good news for Ross this week when he was announced as the number 10 seed for the World Championships at the Lakeside in January.

But ‘The Boss’ thought he might have been seeded a couple of places higher. He explained: "It’s great to be the number 10 seed, but I’m a bit disappointed I didn’t get a bit higher up than that.

"I did a lot of hard work this year and thought I might have been ranked eighth, but I’m over the moon to be at the Lakeside again and I will just get on with playing my game when I get there.

"My seeding means I won’t be playing another seeded player until the second round so that’s great. But I’ve still got a couple of tournaments to concentrate on before the Lakeside."

Ross is currently looking for sponsors to go on his shirt for the Lakeside Competition which will be screened live on BBC television from January 3 until January 11. Anyone interested in sponsoring him should email

The Winmau Masters will be on the BBC from Saturday, December 6.