THERE were times when Johnny Haines thought he had done enough to progress to round three before he quickly tumbled out of the UK Open at the hands of Nigel Heydon yesterday.

The High Street club player stormed past Steve Douglas to earn his spot against the Undertaker in round two and, after initially trailing, took out 133 to break the throw and take a 4-3 lead.

From there, a slack leg from Haines allowed Heydon to take the contest to a deciding leg in which the Swindon player missed four darts at a double, before his opponent took out 108 to inflict a heart breaking defeat.

“I was gutted, absolutely gutted,” Haines said.

“I had four darts to win that match but it didn’t happen and I feel so gutted about it.

“I hit a 133 to break him and go 4-3 up but then I played the worst leg of my life to let him get it back to 4-4, and from there he went on and beat me.

“I played well in the last leg and had four darts at the double, but he took out 108 and that shows how far he was behind. That hurt big time.”

Despite wanting to escape back to Swindon immediately after his defeat, Haines and his fellow Wiltshire players will remain in Minehead for the remainder of the tournament. Despite the pain of this loss, the Punk is determined to enjoy himself.

“We’ve got the players championship next weekend and I’ll bounce back, I always do,” he said.

“We stay at the event the whole weekend, because obviously we want to go as far as we can, but after a defeat like that we want to go home.

“We’ll stay, of course we will, and once this is out of our system we will have a good time I’m sure.”