Joe Cullen has opened up about the loss of his mother recently following his run to the Cazoo European Championship semi-finals in Salzburg.
Cullen won through to a second televised semi-final with victories over Ted Evetts, William Borland and Mensur Suljovic at the Salzburgarena, before losing out to eventual champion Rob Cross.
However, the tournament came less than a week after Cullen's mother had passed away, with the 32-year-old using her memory as an inspiration going into the event.
"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," he admitted.
"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."
Cullen's challenge eventually ended in the semi-finals, with Cross opening up an unassailable 9-0 lead before closing out an 11-3 victory.
"Considering the circumstances, I'd have snapped your hand off to reach the semi-finals but there's a lot of disappointment there," Cullen added.
"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."
