Joe Cullen haalde afgelopen weekend de halve finales van het Cazoo European Championship. Na die wedstrijd vertelde hij over het verlies van zijn moeder.
Cullen speelde zich naar zijn tweede halve finale op TV met overwinningen op Ted Evetts, William Borland en Mensur Suljovic in de Salzburgarena, voordat hij in de halve finale verloor van de uiteindelijke kampioen Rob Cross.
Het toernooi kwam minder dan een week nadat de moeder van Cullen kwam te overlijden, de 32-jarige gebruikte zijn herinneringen aan haar als een inspiratie om te spelen in dit toernooi.
CULLEN: "I've not practised at all for three months - I'd not even taken my darts out of their case since the World Grand Prix.
Maybe that inspired me a little bit, subconsciously, but I felt like I could win this weekend and it's frustrating.
I've overcome a lot in the last few months and hopefully the worst is behind me and I can push on now, whether that's on the ProTour or TV events.
I've not really had time to process it, and ironically the darts has come at a good time because I've not had chance to sit and dwell on what's happened.
This weekend's done now and then we've got the ProTour events in Barnsley, so maybe it's a blessing that the darts is coming thick and fast.
You can see when the tough times have started; she got diagnosed at the end of June and if you look at my form before that, I won a tournament in the middle of June and after that darts has been secondary.
Hopefully I can find some form coming into the back-end of the year, where it really matters.
If I can find something now at such an important time of year then I'll be more than happy."
Cullens toernooi eindigde in de halve finales waar Cross een 9-0 voorsprong pakte voordat hij uiteindelijk de wedstrijd met 11-3 won.
CULLEN: "Considering the circumstances, I'd have snapped your hand off to reach the semi-finals but there's a lot of disappointment there.
I played nowhere near my best in the semi-final. Rob punished me, irrelevant to how I played, and he was the rightful victor.
It's frustrating because I played steady all weekend and did the right things at the right times but got ironed out in the end."
© Foto: Professional Darts Corporation (PDC)