Dave Askew

Dave Askew (born 3 April 1963 in Redhill, Surrey) is an English former darts player who competed in the Professional Darts Corporation. Askew is a twice semi-finalist in the PDC World Championship, both in 2001 and 2002 and on both occasions losing to eventual winner Phil Taylor.

Askew began competing in major tournaments in the late 1980s, prior to the split in the game during 1992-94. He won the Danish Open in 1988 and the French Open the following year. After the top players left the British Darts Organisation during mid-1993, Askew began to produce some more good results, reaching the final of the British Open and the quarter-finals of the Belgian Open and the Winmau World Masters, performances which secured his debut at the 1994 BDO World Darts Championship (the first year after the split) but he lost to Ian Sarfas - an Englishman who made his only World Championship appearance that year. In 1995, Askew came back from 2 sets down to beat the number one seed Steve Beaton in the first round of the World Championship before losing by three sets to nil to Raymond van Barneveld, who went on to reach his first world final that year.

After the 1995 World Championships and Scottish Open, Askew virtually disappeared off the circuit for around five years - but did lose narrowly in the final of the British Matchplay later that year. Thereafter there were only 4 notable tournament appearances until 2000. Runs to the quarter final of the Finnish and Dutch Open and a semi final finish in the British Open as well as knocking Raymond Van Barneveld out in a run to the Last 32 of Winmau World Masters of 1998. He then joined the Professional Darts Corporation in May 2000, and a few months later was reaching the semi finals of the 2001 World Championship. Later in 2001, he reached the final of the Irish Masters (losing to Denis Ovens). He beat Chris Mason, Roland Scholten and Dennis Priestley in another fine run to the semi-final of the 2002 World Championship. Shortly after the Worlds he reached the semi-finals of the Irish Masters again.

However, since then, Askew has failed to live up to the building potential. He made regular quarter-final and semi-final appearances at the non-televised events in 2004, but then only one quarter-final in 2005 and one in 2006 saw his world ranking steadily fall. He competed at 31 PDC tour events during 2007, with £5,475 prize money and just two quarter-final runs to show for it. He fell out of the top 32 of the rankings, which means he will have to qualify for all future televised events including the World Championship.

Askew is not a full-time professional player - he earns his living as a bricklayer.

BDO

• 1994: 1st Round (lost to Ian Sarfas 0-3)
• 1995: 2nd Round (lost to Raymond van Barneveld 0-3)

PDC

• 2001: Semi Finals (lost to Phil Taylor 0-6)
• 2002: Semi Finals (lost to Phil Taylor 0-6)
• 2003: 3rd Round (lost to Roland Scholten 0-5)
• 2004: 3rd Round (lost to Keith Deller 3-4)
• 2005: 3rd Round (lost to Chris Mason 3-4)
• 2006: 1st Round (lost to Gerry Convery 0-3)
• 2007: 3rd Round (lost to Alan Tabern 3-4)
• 2008: 1st Round (lost to Adrian Lewis 1-3)