Heta beats Aspinall to win first PDC title of 2025

Damon Heta secured his first PDC title of 2025 with an 8-6 victory over Nathan Aspinall in the final of the 13th Players Championship event of the year.

Australian number one Heta, 37, raced into a 4-1 lead before England's Aspinall, who won Thursday's Premier League night in Manchester, rallied and at 6-6 the match was finely poised.

Heta then edged a scrappy 20-dart leg before closing out the contest in more clinical fashion to finish with an average of 94.91 to Aspinall's 88.45.

Heta's win at the Autotron Centre in Rosmalen, the Netherlands, helped him climb up to seventh on the PDC order of merit.

"For some reason in darts you sometimes get wins when you're not playing great, and don't get what you deserve when you are playing well," he told the PDC.

"I've been working on a few things to do with my darts set-up, I'm looking for those one per cents to take my game to the next level.

"I'm a hard worker, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully turn up at the big events and get my rewards."

Earlier, Dutchman Michael van Gerwen had suffered a surprise first-round defeat by Mario Vandenbogaerde.

Van Gerwen had been stunned by Irish amateur Michael Flynn at the same venue in February and this time succumbed to another upset on home soil against the 51-year-old Belgian.

The three-time world champion was well placed to reach the second round after he went 4-2 up, only for Vandenbogaerde to win four legs on the bounce.

Elsewhere, Wessel Nijman threw a nine-dart leg during his 6-0 win over Rob Owen in the first round, but went out in the quarter-finals.

Neither world number one Luke Humphries nor world champion Luke Littler took part in the event.

There are 34 Players Championship events across the year, with the competition's finals held in Minehead in November.

The second of the double-header in Rosmalen is on Tuesday.