Early Career
Lewis had shown his potential at the age of 18 by winning the 2003 British Teenage Open. His professional career began in the British Darts Organisation (BDO) events but he only competed in one major tournament, the 2003 Winmau World Masters, losing in the last 128. Lewis then joined the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) without ever qualifying or playing in the BDO World Championship.
Lewis reached a semi-final of the regional qualifiers for the UK Open in 2004, which provided his opportunity for a television debut at the 2004 UK Open in Bolton, where he narrowly lost 7–8 to Dennis Harbour in the last 64. His next television appearance came against his mentor Phil Taylor at the 2004 Las Vegas Desert Classic where he went out 0–2 in the first round. He then went on to win his first match on television at the 2004 World Grand Prix beating former world champion Richie Burnett, before losing to Gary Welding. His first professional ranking title came in September 2004, when he won the Chris de Roo Open after defeating Colin Lloyd in the final.
He failed to qualify for the 2005 World Championship, but back at Bolton for the 2005 UK Open he produced one of the rare whitewashes in the tournament history, beating Colin Monk 11–0 before falling to Chris Mason in the last 16.
Read more about this topic: Adrian Lewis
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“Women who marry early are often overly enamored of the kind of man who looks great in wedding pictures and passes the maid of honor his telephone number.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)