Mark Webster heads to the World Championship in good form after reaching his first PDC major final at Doncaster Dome on Sunday.

Webster defeated Dave Chisnall and Wes Newton on a demanding final day at the Players Championships, but was unable to brush off the challenge from Kevin Painter, who claimed the title.

The Welshman will now turn his attentions to the Alexandra Palace, where he faces compatriot Richie Burnett on the opening night.

He said: “I’ve got to pick myself up because I’ve got my first round game in the Ladbrokes World Championship to play on Thursday night. If I can become World Champion again this will be forgotten about.”

Webster dug deep to win a dramatic quarter final against Chisnall, winning a last leg decider for the second consecutive day to claim a 9-8 victory.

He then turned on the style in the semi as a display of high scoring and sharp finishing saw him ease past Wes Newton with a 10-7 win.

Webster outscored Painter on 140s and matched him on 100s in the final, but three ton-plus finishes from The Artist proved to be the difference.

As runner up, the Welshman collected a cool £24,000 but, more importantly, his run to the final could prove to be ideal preparation for the World Championships.

James Wade will now also focus on success at Ally Pally after suffering a quarter final defeat at the  hands of Scott Rand.

The Machine can count himself unlucky, having being eliminated despite scoring the second highest average of all the quarter finalists.

He said: “I didn’t play well enough to win and he did a good job to beat me. I’ll regroup from this and get ready for the World Championship now.”

Wade will play either Per Laursen or Petri Korte in his first round tie on Monday 19^th December.

THE second PDC World Cup of Darts will be held in Hamburg, Germany from February 3-5 2012, and screened live on Sky Sports.

The tournament was a huge success when first staged in December 2010, with the Dutch pair of Raymond van Barneveld and Co Stompe taking victory for the Netherlands.

They defeated the Welsh team of Mark Webster and Barrie Bates in the final, while Australia and Spain lit up the tournament in their runs to the semis.

Next year’s 24-team event will be held across three days from February 3-5 at the Alsterdorfer Sporthalle in Hamburg.

Each team will feature the leading two PDPA members from each nation on the PDC Order of Merit at January 3 2012 following the forthcoming Ladbrokes World Darts Championship.

In the event that this does not produce 24 competing nations, further nations which have two players featured on the PDC’s Order of Merit* who are not full PDPA members shall be included.

In the event that this still does not produce 24 competing nations, further nations will be invited to participate at the discretion of the PDC’s Board of Directors.

The 24 nations will be seeded from 1-24 based on a cumulative total of the competing players’ ranking position, with the lowest total seeded 1 and the highest total seeded 24. For example, should Phil Taylor (1) and Adrian Lewis (2) represent England, their cumulative total would be 3.

The top eight seeds will come in at the second round stage, with the countries ranked 9-24 competing in the first round on Friday afternoon.