IDF World Cup Darts chat with Paul Lim and Harith Lim

Team Singapore recently ventured to Shanghai, China recently to participate in the IDF (International Darts Federation) Darts World Cup Shanghai on 6-9 November. This event was a premier world class darts tournament held in Shanghai and sponsored by Dartslive. It attracted participants from more than 20 countries from around the world ! Team Singapore was represented by Paul Lim, Harith Lim, Kelvin Yap and Loh Yi-Shin. We chatted with Paul Lim and Harith Lim to share their experiences in Shanghai with our readers. Tomorrow, we will post our conversations with Loh Yi-Shin and River Ang, so check back again for that.

Q. What ambitions did you initially have when travelling to Shanghai?

Paul - We were planning to win everything, of course (laughs). However, looking at the format clearly, I knew it was very hard for us to win because of the lady player. For a team to make a strong impact, it needed a strong lady player. The country that won the Team Event (Russia) had a very strong lady player and that was Anastasia (Dobromyslova). Stacy Bromberg was there to play for USA but if they had taken part in the Team event, they would have had a strong chance of winning. The key was a strong lady player, because of the game format.

Harith Lim and Paul Lim at IDF'2012, Shanghai

Q. Tell us about Team Singapore's performance in the Country Team event?

Paul - The game with the Philippines team was very close for a while and their lady player was pretty good, which played a big part.
Harith - The Philippines team was very strong. Taiwan was also very competitive.

Q. After proceeding into the Single knockout round, Team Singapore crashed out against Slovenia. What happen there?

Paul - That game was tough. I didn't play very well too, we were all really tired after the long day. The game was actually quite close for a long time.
Harith – Yes, it started off close too. Their lady player wasn't very strong but just perform at the right time and the guy who wasn’t very strong started playing very well. We lost 6-9 and ended in Joint 5th position.
Paul - We just played our darts. It wasn't as good as we wanted to play, so we were a bit disappointed there.

Team Singapore at IDF'2012, Shanghai

Q. Harith, tell us about your Singles Cricket event where you finished in 3rd place?

Harith - It was good. I took Jerry Suerto out, then Lourence Illagan, then Paul Lim in the semis. I was doing really good. I want to play like this in The World finals!
Paul - You just went through a lot of very good players! (laughs)
Harith - You have to be playing your "A" game all the way. Everybody is out there to win and everyone is capable of doing that.
Paul - Harith was “flying”, man, even in the earlier rounds, we chat and he knew he was flying. I think what happened was, after the long break, your (Harith) adrenaline came down a bit.
Harith - Yeah, I went all the way through to the Winners Pool finals and lost there. Then there was the long delay after I got into the losers bracket and waited for Royden in the losers pool finals. Subsequently, I lost to Royden Lam and finished at 3rd place.

Harith Lim (right), 3rd place, World Cup Pro (Singles) Cricket

Q. Share with us some of the most memorable games that you had with any players during the event?

Harith - They were all good games. The most memorable one was where I beat Lourence. I didn't give him a chance to come back at all.
Paul – My most memorable game was the game that I lost to Harith (laughs)! It was a good game though. Actually, most of the games that I lost were 2-1. I lost 2-1 to Harith in the winners bracket. He played really well. In the losers bracket, I lost to a Croatian guy, Maurice, who was a great player. Overall, I can’t be too disappointed.

Q. What did you do in Shanghai other than darts?

Harith - We ate a lot! We ate a lot of meat until my blood pressure went up!(laughs). Especially that Muslim Xinjiang BBQ lamb recommended by Shin. It was really very, very good

Q. Share with us some of the new friends that you made during the event

Paul - We made a lot of new friends, took a lot of pictures, mostly with the European countries like Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy. Altogether, players from 23 countries participated but only 18 countries took part in Team Event, the rest didn't participate in the Team Event as they only had 2 to 3 members.

Q. Are there any words of encouragement you would like to share?

Paul - I really think it’s a great thing to represent the country. Everyone had the opportunity. It was almost like playing in the Olympics. The IDF World Cup is like the Olympics. It’s the next closest thing we have for darts, because darts is not in the Olympics. This is the next biggest thing in terms of number of countries participating. Overall, the IDF event had a good representation from various countries. I think the IDF did well here.

Q. What can local players do to raise their dart standards in order to reach a higher placing in the World Cup?

Paul - Obviously you have to be very good, there’s no doubt about that. Its about how good you want to be and how much you want to represent Singapore, it’s the whole pride thing.
Harith - Paul, I think our team could do better, we should plan properly the next time round and build up a strong team.

Catch tomorrow's blog entry for the IDF tournament chat with Shin and River.
Photos courtesy of Harith