Rampant Rob Cross secured a special birthday for Scots mate Jim Walker by winning 2025 Players Championship 01.

The Londoner scooped the first PDC ProTour event of the season after proving one peak too high for his rival Joe Cullen. Cullen, who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for charity last month, dumped World Champion Luke Littler and World No.1 Luke Humphries on his way to the Final.

However Cross, who beat Andrew Gilding in his semi to make the shootout, was too strong as he won 8-3 to win a 10th Players Championship. The victory backed-up a success at the Dutch Darts Masters and was an ideal gift for Walker, a PDC player who also is part of the 2018 World Champion's key support team built by manager Rab Bain.

READ MORE: Steven Gerrard management return mapped out as England legend tells ex Rangers boss route to follow

READ MORE: 'My nightmare neighbour won't clean up his dog's mess - what he said has me reeling'

Cross said: “It’s two titles this year. I’ve not won this early in the year, not even when I won my first ProTour all those years ago But I’m happy. I told Jimmy I would win just because it’s his birthday today. I said, yeah, we’ll have a go today. I didn’t even know it was his birthday for the first three or four hours here, good friend that, innit! But you’ve got to keep the boss happy! Look I’m enjoying myself and, when I’m on it, I love it. I love the game. When I’m not, I’m my own worst enemy.

“I found it, it’s been nice. I’m hit and miss, you know, I’m up and I’m down, but when I do find it, I can play some special darts. It’s nice to win again. Obviously, look, we can all be lazy, I was lazy on my own front last year, I don’t think at times I was wrong, but there were certain ones, maybe I could have pushed up the ranking a little bit more, but I was too stubborn, I wanted to spend the time with the family.”

Humphries was beaten 7-6 in a last-four thriller by Cullen and it was the last 16 stage where Littler perished at the hands of the Rockstar in a 6-3 reversal.

Scots stars Gary Anderson and Peter Wright lost in the first round along with Andy Boulton, Darren Beveridge and Greg Ritchie, while Willie Borland was a second-round casualty to Carl Sneyd. Cameron Menzies missed the event through illness.