Clayton beats Humphries to claim Swiss title

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.