Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Anastasia Dobromyslova

Anastasia Dobromyslova
Personal information
Full nameAnastasia Petrovna Dobromyslova-Martin
Nickname"From Russia with Love"
Born (1984-09-26) 26 September 1984 (age 40)
Kalinin, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Home townEllesmere Port, England
Darts information
Playing darts since1995
Darts22g Galaxy Barrels Anastasia Dobromyslova
LateralityRight-handed
Walk-on music"Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence
Organisation (see split in darts)
BDO2001–2008, 2011–2020
PDC2008–2011
WDF2001–2008, 2011–
WDF major events – best performances
World Ch'shipWinner (3): 2008, 2012, 2013
World MastersWinner (1): 2014
World TrophyWinner (1): 2014
Finder MastersWinner (3): 2012, 2014, 2016
Dutch OpenWinner (2): 2005, 2008
PDC premier events – best performances
World Ch'shipLast 70: 2009
UK OpenLast 128: 2008, 2009
Grand SlamGroup Stage: 2008, 2009
Other tournament wins
TournamentYears
Antwerp Open
BDO International Open
Belgium Open
British Open
England Classic
England Masters
England Matchplay
England National Ch'ships
England Open
Finnish Open
German Open
Irish Open
Isle of Man Open
Mariflex Open
Latvia Open
Scottish Classic
Scottish Open
Tops of Ghent
WDF Europe Cup Singles
Welsh Classic
Welsh Open
Welsh Masters
2012, 2014
2011
2005
2006, 2007
2014
2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2015
2014
2007, 2012, 2014
2004
2021
2014
2013
2011
2011
2014
2006, 2008, 2014
2011
2014
2012
2008
2008, 2014
Medal record
Women's Darts
Representing  Russia
EDU European Ch'ship
Gold medal – first place 2011 Benidorm Women's singles
Gold medal – first place 2013 Geiselwind Women's singles
Gold medal – first place 2015 Poreč Women's singles

Anastasia Petrovna Dobromyslova-Martin (Russian: Анастаси́я Петро́вна Добромы́слова; born 26 September 1984) is a professional darts player. She is a three-time Women's World Professional Darts Champion of the British Darts Organisation (BDO).

After winning her first title in 2008, Dobromyslova decided to join the rival male-dominated Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) to play in their World Championship in 2009. After rejoining the BDO in 2011, she won her second World Championship in 2012 and a third in 2013.

Dobromyslova uses the song "Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence. She carries the name From Russia with Love, although she has stated herself that it is not an official nickname. She is more commonly known as just Anastasia due to the difficulty English-speaking commentators and announcers have pronouncing her surname.

Career

Dobromyslova started to play darts at the age of 12,[1] and has won the Russian National Championship a total of 10 times. According to Dobromyslova, it was quite easy because hardly anyone played the game in Russia. She won the Girls' World Masters title in 2001 and won the WDF Europe Youth Cup singles title in 2001 and 2002.

She made her professional major debut at the 2004 Bavaria World Darts Trophy, where she beat Trina Gulliver in the quarter-final, averaging 90. After beating Mieke de Boer in the semis, she lost to Francis Hoenselaar in the final.

In 2007, Dobromyslova made her debut in the BDO World Championship at Lakeside, as the number 4 seed, reaching the semi-finals. After beating Sweden's Carina Ekberg in the quarter-finals, she fell to eventual winner, Trina Gulliver. During the year, she won the England Open and the British Open, amongst several other singles titles across Europe. In October, she represented Russia in the 2007 WDF World Cup in the Netherlands, and won the ladies' pairs title with Irina Armstrong.

In 2008, she returned to Lakeside, again as the number 4 seed, for the World Championship. She defeated Dee Bateman in the first round and Stephanie Smee in the semi-finals, before defeating Trina Gulliver in the final by two sets to nil, ending Gulliver's seven-year unbeaten run as world champion.

Dobromyslova made headlines when she qualified for the 2008 UK Open, a PDC major tournament, by winning through the Pub Qualifiers event, beating Darren Place 5–2 and Pete Galloway 5–0.[2] In the first round, she was drawn to play Robert Thornton, who was also a BDO player who won through the Pub Qualifiers, and was the reigning World Masters champion. Thornton narrowly won 6–5.

She was named the number one seed for the 2008 Zuiderduin Masters, but was excluded from playing by the Dutch authorities after problems with her visa, and was forced to withdraw. She was replaced by Lisa Ashton.

Dobromyslova received an invitation from the PDC to play in the 2008 Grand Slam of Darts, as BDO Ladies' world champion. It was the first time a female darts player was invited to play at the Grand Slam. In her group, she was drawn with reigning PDC world champion John Part, Kevin McDine, and Wayne Mardle. After losing her opening match 5–1 to Part, she gave Mardle a scare when she came from 4–0 to take four consecutive legs, including a Shanghai 120 checkout and a 116, before Mardle won the deciding leg. A third defeat occurred when she lost 5–2 to McDine.

In December, she went into the 2008 World Masters as the number one ranked ladies' darts player, and reached the final, where she lost to Hoenselaar. Just a few hours later, however, it was announced that Dobromyslova had left the WDF/BDO circuit, and had joined the PDC on a full-time basis, after she was awarded a wildcard entry into the 2009 PDC World Darts Championship following the withdrawal of an unnamed Indian qualifier,[3] a decision that was publicly criticised by five-time world champion Eric Bristow.[4]

Dobromyslova became the second female player to play in a men's world darts championship, after Canadian Gayl King played in the 2001 event. She was drawn in the preliminary round against Remco van Eijden, and lost 5 legs to 3.

She qualified again for the UK Open in 2009, this time through her UK Open Order of Merit ranking, having won £500 in seven qualifying events. She played amateur qualifier Andy Roberts in the first round and lost 6–2.

Following their failed takeover bid of the BDO, the PDC introduced their own Women's World Championship, and Dobromyslova automatically qualified as the only female member of the PDPA. She lost in the semi-finals to Stacy Bromberg, who went on the beat Tricia Wright in the final.

At the 2009 Grand Slam of Darts, Dobromyslova was drawn with Phil Taylor, Vincent van der Voort, and Mark Webster. After suffering a 5–0 whitewash from Taylor in her first group match, Dobromyslova defeated van der Voort 5–4. It was her first ever win against a man on television, and made her only the second woman to beat a male professional darts player in a major televised darts competition, the first being Deta Hedman's defeats of Aaron Turner and Norman Fletcher in the 2005 UK Open. She still finished bottom of the group, however, as van der Voort unexpectedly beat Taylor 5–1 two days later, whilst she lost her last group game to Webster 5–2.

Dobromyslova failed to qualify for the PDC World Championship in 2010 and 2011, despite entering the Russian PDC qualifying events. In the 2010 qualifier, she lost in the final to Roman Konchikov, and she lost again in the final, to Andrei Ratnikov in the 2011 event. Ratnikov later withdrew from the competition after he was unable to travel to England for family reasons. PDC awarded his preliminary round place to the runner-up of the PDPA qualifying event (which later turned out to be Matt Padgett), rather than Dobromyslova.

Dobromyslova represented Russia in the first ever PDC World Cup of Darts along with Konchikov. The pair beat Gibraltar, paired by Dylan Duo and Dyson Parody, in the first round, before losing to Scotland's Gary Anderson and Robert Thornton.

On 24 December 2010, it was rumoured amongst several darts internet forums that Dobromyslova had resigned from the PDC and returned to play in BDO and WDF events. On 1 January 2011, during the BBC's broadcast of the 2011 BDO World Darts Championship, commentator David Croft announced that Dobromyslova was indeed returning to play in the BDO circuit. Anastasia herself confirmed over a week later, via her Twitter page, that she had left the PDC and was preparing for the Dutch Open. She later said she moved back to the BDO for monetary reasons.[5]

She qualified for the 2012 BDO World Darts Championship, where in the quarter-final, she defeated second seeded Welsh woman Julie Gore by two sets to nil. In the semi-finals, she defeated third seed and title holder Trina Gulliver again by two sets to nil. Dobromyslova then recovered from losing the first set and needing to break her opponent Deta Hedman's throw to stay in the match to win her second world championship two sets to one.[6]

In 2013 Dobromyslova won her third World title after beating Lisa Ashton 2–1 in sets.

Soft tip darts

Dobromyslova also plays soft tip darts competitively, as well as steel-tip darts, having represented Russia at the International Darts Federation (IDF) World Cup and European Darts Union (EDU) European Championship. She is a former world and European champion in the sport.[7]

She became the 2011 European singles champion in Benidorm.[8] At the IDF World Cup in 2011, Dobromyslova won the Pro Singles Cricket event, but lost the Pro Singles (501) event final,[9][10] and also won the Pro Mixed Pairs event.[8]

Dobromyslova became European champion again in 2012.[7] At the 2012 IDF World Cup, Dobromyslova beat Stacy Bromberg to win the Pro Singles (501) event.[7][11][12] It meant she became the first woman to become the soft-tip and steel-tip (501) world darts champion in the same year.[7] She lost the Pro Cricket Singles event final to Bromberg,[7] but won the team event with Russia.[7][12] Russia became the first European team to win the team event.[12]

World Championship results

PDC

BDO

Career finals

WDF / BDO major youth finals: 4 (3 titles, 1 runner-up)

Legend
Winmau World Masters (1–1)
WDF Europe Youth Cup (2–0)
Outcome No. Year Championship Opponent in the final Score[N 1]
Runner-up 1. 2000 Winmau World Masters Wales Janine Gough 0–3 (l)
Winner 2. 2001 Winmau World Masters (1) Netherlands Jeannett Thomassen 3–1 (l)
Winner 3. 2001 WDF Europe Youth Cup Singles (1) Unknown Unknown[13]
Winner 4. 2002 WDF Europe Youth Cup Singles (2) Unknown Unknown[13]

WDF major youth team finals: 1 (1 title)

Outcome No. Year Championship Opponents in the final Score[N 1]
Winner 1. 1999 Europe Youth Cup Pairs (1)
with Russia Anastasia Borissova
Unknown Unknown[13]

WDF / BDO major finals: 18 (9 titles, 9 runners-up)

Legend
World Championship (3–1)
Winmau World Masters (1–2)
World Darts Trophy (0–1)
Zuiderduin Masters (3–2)
BDO World Trophy (1–3)
WDF Europe Cup (1–0)
Outcome No. Year Championship Opponent in the final Score[N 1]
Runner-up 1. 2004 World Darts Trophy Netherlands Francis Hoenselaar 1–3 (s)
Winner 2. 2008 World Darts Championship (1) England Trina Gulliver 2–0 (s)
Runner-up 3. 2008 Winmau World Masters Netherlands Francis Hoenselaar 3–4 (l)
Winner 4. 2012 World Darts Championship (2) England Deta Hedman 2–1 (s)
Winner 5. 2012 Zuiderduin Masters (1) Netherlands Aileen de Graaf 2–1 (s)
Winner 6. 2013 World Darts Championship (3) England Lisa Ashton 2–1 (s)
Runner-up 7. 2013 Zuiderduin Masters Netherlands Aileen de Graaf 0–2 (s)
Winner 8. 2014 World Winmau Masters (1) England Fallon Sherrock 4–1 (l)
Winner 9. 2014 BDO World Trophy (1) England Lisa Ashton 9–7 (l)
Winner 10. 2014 Zuiderduin Masters (2) Netherlands Aileen de Graaf 2–1 (s)
Winner 11. 2014 WDF Europe Cup Singles (1) England Deta Hedman 7–5 (l)
Runner-up 12. 2015 BDO World Trophy England Lisa Ashton 5–7 (l)
Runner-up 13. 2015 Zuiderduin Masters England Fallon Sherrock 0–2 (s)
Winner 14. 2016 Zuiderduin Masters (3) Netherlands Aileen de Graaf 2–1 (s)
Runner-up 15. 2017 BDO World Trophy Netherlands Aileen de Graaf 2–6 (l)
Runner-up 16. 2018 World Darts Championship England Lisa Ashton 1–3 (s)
Runner-up 17. 2019 BDO World Trophy England Lisa Ashton 2–6 (l)
Runner-up 18. 2019 Winmau World Masters England Lisa Ashton 4–5 (l)

WDF major team finals: 1 (1 title)

Outcome No. Year Championship Opponents in the final Score[N 1]
Winner 1. 2007 World Cup Pairs (1)
with Russia Irina Armstrong
Sweden Maud Jansson
Sweden Carina Ekberg
4–2 (l)

Performance timeline

Tournament 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021-2023 2024
BDO/WDF Ranked televised events
BDO World Championship Did not play SF W PDC DNP W W SF SF 1R SF RU SF QF DNP
Winmau World Masters DNP L16 QF DNP RU PDC DNP L64 L64 W QF QF QF SF RU NH DNP
BDO World Trophy NYF W RU SF RU SF RU NH
Zuiderduin Masters NYF PDC L6G W RU W RU W RR DNP Not Held
World Darts Trophy DNP RU QF Not Held
WDF World Cup Singles NH QF NH DNP NH L64 NH No longer a BDO Member DNP NH DNP NH DNP NH SF NH DNP NH
Pairs RR W W
Team 7TH RU QF
WDF Europe Cup Singles SF NH L16 NH L32 NH DNP No longer a BDO Member NH DNP NH W NH DNP NH DNP NH DNP
Pairs QF RR RR L16
Team 5TH 10TH 17TH 4TH
PDC Ranked televised events
PDC World Championship Not a PDC member L70 DNP No longer a PDC member DNQ
PDC Women's World Championship NYF SF Not held
UK Open NYF Not a PDC member 1R 1R DNQ No longer a PDC member DNP
Grand Slam of Darts NYF DNP L32G L32G Did not qualify
PDC Non-ranked televised events
PDC World Cup of Darts NYF 2R No longer a PDC member DNP
Women's World Matchplay NH DNP QF
Performance Table Legend
W Won the tournament RU Runner-up SF Semifinalist QF Quarterfinalist #R
RR
L#
Lost in # round
Round-robin
Last # stage
DQ Disqualified
DNQ Did not qualify DNP Did not participate WD Withdrew NH Tournament not held NYF Not yet founded

Personal life

Dobromyslova is married to Tony Martin, who qualified for the 2005 BDO World Darts Championship and resides in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England. Their first child, a son called Joseph, was born in February 2017.[14]

She is the first and the only darts player to date to be awarded the honorary title "Merited Master of Sport of Russia".[15]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d (l) = score in legs, (s) = score in sets.

References

  1. ^ Ingle, Sean (12 December 2018). "Anastasia Dobromyslova: 'Being a girl, I've had to fight for my spot in darts'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  2. ^ "Anastasia Wins Holsten Qualifier Spot". PDC. 11 May 2008. Archived from the original on 5 August 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  3. ^ "Dobromyslova to join PDC Circuit". Archived from the original on 5 August 2012.
  4. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/darts/7790293.stm Russian wildcard angers Bristow
  5. ^ "Russian star Anastasia Dobromsylova angry at TV blackout for women's world final". mirror.co.uk. 6 January 2012. Retrieved 8 January 2012.
  6. ^ "Anastasia Dobromyslova". BBC Sport. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
  7. ^ a b c d e f "IDF WOrld Cup of Darts (Soft-Tip)". Anastasia Darts. 8 January 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  8. ^ a b "ANASTASIA DOBROMYSLOVA 2012 Lakeside Womens World Champion". LDO. 30 January 2012. Archived from the original on 10 August 2016. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  9. ^ "WORLD CUP SHANGHAI 2011 – RESULTS". IDF. 9 November 2009. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  10. ^ "IDF DARTS WORLD CUP 2011". IDF. 24 November 2011. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  11. ^ "World Cup win for Ana". Unicorn Darts. 7 November 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  12. ^ a b c "TEAM RUSSIA WIN THE 2012 IDF WORLD CUP IN SHANGHAI". KSport Supply. 16 November 2012. Archived from the original on 16 June 2016. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  13. ^ a b c "WDF Europe Cup Youth: Roll of Honour" (PDF). WDF. Retrieved 5 June 2016.
  14. ^ "Kenny looking to make a big impression at BDO World Trophy".
  15. ^ Приказ "О присвоении почетного спортивного звания "Заслуженный мастер спорта России"