By Lorenzo Di-Mauro Hayes
If what every Australian sportsperson wants to do is beat the English, then Damon Heta might have the best deal of them all. Heta, nicknamed ‘The Heat’ as a play on his last name, is the Australia’s biggest star in the sport of darts. A sport originating out of England, which has experienced several booms in popularity since the early 1980s with characters such as Eric Bristow, Phil Taylor, Raymond van Barneveld, Adrian Lewis and Michael van Gerwen, attracting people from all walks of life to sit in front of the TV to watch a sport based out of the corner of a pub and while seventeen-year-old Luke Littler has made darts even more mainstream, Heta is a character of his own and with 45 of the 128 Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) tour card holders being English, he is certainly doing Australia proud.

Hailing from Perth, Heta always had an interest in sport but took more interest initially in the more popular contact sports, but his parents played darts and he turned out to be fairly good himself. Heta is a roofer by trade, but he was also a long-time member of the Dartsplayers Australia (DPA) tour scene. Heta won a DPA qualifier to make his televised debut at 2014 Sydney Darts Masters, an event making up the World Series of Darts, a series of non-ranking darts tournaments around the world organised by the PDC, featuring eight of the sport’s biggest names who take on eight regional qualifiers. Heta lost 6 legs to 0, to Dave Chisnall in his TV debut. Heta would return to the World Series for 2016 Auckland Darts Masters, where he again lost in the first round to van Gerwen 6-3. Heta claimed his first televised victory at the 2018 Melbourne Darts Masters with a 6-5 last leg victory over Kyle Anderson. He was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Gary Anderson. A week later Heta drew Gary Anderson in the first round and lost 6-5 at the Brisbane Darts Masters. Heta had seen plenty of success in Australia with victories at the 2011 Pacific Masters, the 2014 DPA Australian Singles, the 2015 West Coast Classic, and the 2016 DPA Australian Open.
2019 would be the turning point year in Heta’s career. On August 3rd, 2019, at the Moama Bowling Club, Heta claimed the first edition of the Australian Darts Open organised by the World Darts Federation (WDF), defeating the 2015 Lakeside World Champion Scott Mitchell and had qualified for three World Series events. The first was the 2019 Brisbane Darts Masters held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre. In the first round, Heta played James Wade, a former World Matchplay and Premier League Darts champion. He took out a 164 checkout to take the game to the last leg and ended up winning the match 6-5. In the second round, he beat Gary Anderson 8-6. In the semi-final, he played former World Championship finalist and European Champion Simon Whitlock. Heta got by 8-6 coming from 4 legs to 1 behind and went on to play 2018 World Champion Rob Cross. In the final, Heta again took out a 164 checkout in the game’s fourth leg and after survived a Rob Cross match darts in the 14th leg, Heta forced a last leg. With 202 points left, Heta hit two treble 20s and the bullseye to leave double 16. The quarter-final, semi-final and final had all taken place on August 10th, 2019, Heta’s 32nd birthday, so it was fitting for Heta to hit 32, to become just the second regional qualifier after Kyle Anderson at the 2017 Auckland Darts Masters to win a world series event.

Despite only winning one match at the other two World Series events, he competed in, Heta had arrived. On 19th January 2020, due to finishing fourth on the UK Q-School order of merit, Heta won himself a two-year PDC tour card. PDC tour card holders participate in the 30 annual Players Championship events and can also play in the European Tour qualifiers to compete in any of the 13 European tour events. Winning prize money in these events is how a player rises the ranks to play on darts biggest stages and on TV. He had two years to prove himself and 2020 and 2021 was a tough two years to do that. At Players Championship 15 he claimed his first PDC ranking tournament victory with an 8-4 win over Joe Cullen in the final. Several other good performances led Heta to raise the ranks and he was 29th in the world by the time his two-year tour card expired and by being in the top 64 he got a one-year extension and has not been in danger of losing his tour card since. From the moment he joined the top tier of world darts, Heta would establish himself as a unique character. Most players will pick a walk-on song, or one will be chosen for them, which accompanies their entry to the stage before a match. From Nathan Aspinall and Stephen Bunting singing with the crowd to Peter Wright and Dimitri Van den Bergh dancing on stage, the walk-ons are just as important a part of televised darts as the actual throwing of arrows. This is where Heta stands out. Instead of the one song, Heta has experimented with many songs and outfits while making his way to the stage. From walking out as fireman before unveiling his new shirt design at the World Grand Prix in Leicester, to skiing onto stage in Graz, Austria to walking onto stage with a plastic cricket bat and wearing a baggy green to remind the crowd in Blackpool, England that Australia was in front in the Ashes, Heta’s ability on and off the oche has turned him into a unique character on tour.

But when it comes to the darts itself, Heta’s career was only getting better. In 2022, Heta achieved the biggest win of his career in Frankfurt, Germany at the World Cup of Darts. Heta joined Simon Whitlock who has represented Australia in every edition of this tournament, which began in 2010 and has been held annually since 2012. For the first five tournaments, he played alongside Paul Nicholson, in the next four he played with Kyle Anderson and since 2020 it has been with Heta. Entering the tournament as the fifth seed, they began strong with a 5 legs to 2 doubles win over Lithuania. In the quarter-final tie against Sweden, Whitlock won 4-3 but after Heta lost 4-3 it forced a double match to determine the quarter-final spot which the Australians managed to win 4-1. In the quarter-final against Belgium, Heta went down to van den Bergh 4-2 before Whitlock survived against Kim Huybrechts 4-3. In the doubles decider the Australian pair whitewashed the Belgians 4-0. In the semi-final against the first-seed English pair of Michael Smith and James Wade, Heta survived a match dart against Smith before winning three legs on the spin to win 4-3. Then Whitlock whitewashed a struggling Wade 4-0 to send Australia to the final. Unlike in the other stages of the tournament, the final was a race to three wins, with two singles matches and a doubles match to be played, one or two singles matches would then be played if needed. Australia played the Welsh duo of Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton and Australia went within one match of the title after Heta beat Price 4-0 and Whitlock defeated Clayton 4-2. In the doubles match, Whitlock who missed two darts to win the title in 2012, missed a match dart in the doubles match before Clayton secured a 4-3 win to keep the tie alive. But it was ‘The Heat’ with a 99-point average, getting the better of Clayton 4-2 to win the title and just like in Brisbane in 2019, the winning dart went into double 16. While Whitlock had finally won the title, he was so eager to win for so long, it was bittersweet, as former partner Kyle Anderson had not lived to see it. He had passed away of a kidney failure on August 24th, 2021, at just 33 and both Whitlock and Heta dedicated the tournament victory to the late Kyle Anderson.
In 2022, Heta claimed titles at Players Championship 5 and 26, before winning his first European Tour event at the Gibraltar Darts Trophy, beating Peter Wright in the final, 8-7. Heta and Whitlock where unable to defend their World Cup title in 2023, the first tournament with a revamped format of only doubles matches. The pair breezed through the group stage over Guyana and Gibraltar and after a 8-6 win over Croatia, the Australians narrowly lost to Belgium in a last leg decider 8-7, after Heta missed a match dart at double 20 for a 120 checkout, but in that year Heta claimed more titles at Players Championship 14 and 16. 2024 began well for ‘The Heat’, winning another PDC title at Players Championship 4, with a 8-4 win in the final over Chris Dobey. At the UK Open, Heta got the semi-final of a televised ranking PDC tournament for the first time, after victories over Simon Whitlock, Nathan Aspinall and Gian van Veen, Heta faced the sport’s hottest young property, Luke Littler. The match that ensued was perhaps the best in the tournament’s history, both players played were averaging more than 120 through the first six legs and Heta after Littler missed a chance to send the match to a sudden death leg, claimed a 10-8 win. Despite a 11-6 semi-final loss to eventual champion Dmitri van den Bergh, Heta was happy with his run after the match posting online “Also stoked to make my first semifinal at a ranking major and I'm now ninth in the world rankings. Not too bad for a roofer from Perth.”

Heta who turns 37 in August this year, is someone Australian sporting fans should be keeping an eye on. Darts is growing all the time and ‘The Heat’ is in career best form. Currently ranked 11th in the world, he has won the fourth most ranking money in PDC events since the World Championship. He reunited with Simon Whitlock for the 2024 World Cup of Darts. In a disappointing campaign, Australia survived match darts in a win over Japan before beating Hong Kong to win Group D. After being drawn against Italy for the second round, both Whitlock and Heta missed match darts in the final leg before losing 8-7, it was only the third time, Australia failed to make the quarter-finals of the tournament. Darts however, always gives you a chance to fight back and Heta can do so at the World Matchplay, the second biggest ranking PDC event. Heta comes in as the 11th seed and has drawn Ryan Searle in the first round and will play the first game in a blockbuster session highlighted by the highly anticipated match between Luke Littler and Michael van Gerwen, those matches taking place in the early morning of Tuesday July 16 Australian Time. As for Heta the next big step would be to play in the Premier League Darts, held over 17 nights from February to May, and one of the legs making up the PDC Triple Crown. Heta has already achieved plenty in the PDC and there is likely more to come as Heta would say it’s “not too bad for a roofer from Perth.”
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