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Ryan Searle battles blurred vision as well as his opponent (Picture: Getty Images)

Ryan Searle is back for a second crack at the PDC World Darts Championship this year and will be battling his poor eyesight as well as his first round opponent.

The 32-year-old suffers from astigmatism which causes blurred vision, to the extent that he often cannot see where his darts land.

The world number 52 often has to check with the referee what he has hit with his arrows and will sometimes just be guessing if he has nailed the intended target or not.

Despite this, Searle had a superb debut at Alexandra Palace last year, reaching the last 16 after beating Mensur Suljovic, Willie OConnor and Stephen Burton.

The win over seventh seed Suljovic was a huge shock 12 months ago, and he explained his condition to Dan Dawson after the victory.

Even when I was at school I couldnt see the blackboard.Its something Ive always played with, I do really struggle, Searle told Dawson.

But considering that, I dont play too bad.

Dawson explained further on Twitter: Astigmatism in his dominant eye. Everythings blurry. Goes a lot on the feel of whether darts are in.

Some miss the target by a distance and he has to check with the ref where theyve landed.

Astigmatism means your eye is shaped more like a rugby ball than a football, so light is focused at more than one place in the eye.

This can cause:

blurred visionheadacheseye strain (you may notice this after concentrating for a long time on a computer, for example)

Courtesy of NHS.uk

Searle is back in first round action in the 2020 World Championship against 26-year-old Australian Robbie King, who is making his debut at the Alexandra Palace.

The Aussie won the DPA Oceanic Masters title to reach the big one, but has only been seen once before on TV as he averaged just 77 in a first round loss to Rob Cross at the Melbourne Darts Masters.

MORE: Devastated Michael Smith reacts to shock PDC World Darts Championship exit to Luke Woodhouse

MORE: Raymond van Barneveld reacts to nightmare loss in final PDC World Darts Championship match

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Ryan Searle back at the PDC World Darts Championship despite struggling to see the board - Metro.co.uk

This entry was posted on December 19, 2019 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Eye Sight & Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |