Blog - 2022 Dutch Darts Championship Day 3

Day 3 of the 2022 Dutch Darts Championship, well what a day it was!!! 16 players left in the field, as the weather was surprisingly nice but the crowd was surprisingly small on sunday afternoon.

The afternoon started with a last 16 game you orobably wouldn't expect before the event started: Boris Krcmar against Ryan Meikle! Once again the crowd supported Krcmar, and once again it was Krcmar who won, 6-4 to get to the quarter-finals in an Eurotour for the first time ever! Game 2 was a belter, as Danny Noppert took on Peter Wright. Once again, Noppert played in an amazing game and once again it went the full 11 legs. And once again as well, it was 'The Freeze' who won 6-5! My dad is a big Peter Wright fan, but he didn't mind it too much as seeing any player win is nice as long as you're witnessing great games in a crowd with a great atmosphere! Game 3 was Simon Whitlock against Daniel Larsson, and the crowd went very silent here, probably still recovering from the last game. Larsson didn't really turn up, and at 5-1 up it was Whitlock who threw an amazing 150 finish: three times the bullseye! The crowd suddenly woke up, and in the interview Whitlock was wondering why they were so silent, probably unaware of the fact we had to recover from the Noppert game.

Michael van Gerwen was back on sunday afternoon, and took on Callan Rydz. MVG looked to be the better player, but Rydz took almost every chance he got and won 6-4! But good news for the Dutch dartsfans: another Dutchman was next in Dirk van Duijvenbode, who played against Dave Chisnall. Another epic match, one of many this weekend, and this time it was the Dutch player who won 6-5 as Chisnall was knocked out of the event, despite averaging over 105 two games in a row! Next we had Gilding who played great this weekend, against Ryan Searle. Gilding played well again, and with Searle waiting on his favourite double 20, 'Goldfinger' threw a 156-finish against him, which was the knock-out as Gilding won 6-3 and was the second player today who made the quarter-finals of an Eurotour for the very first time. 

Michael Smith against Damon Heta promised to be a good game, and my oh my what a game it was! Smith was threatening record averages in the beginning, but Heta fought back while eventually it was Smith who won 6-3 with an average of 111,10: the highest average ever thrown in Zwolle!! Last game of the afternoon, saw Mervyn King take on Chris Dobey, and every leg seemed to be close but still it was a 6-1 win for The King, who had another great tournament in The Netherlands. While walking to the exit of the venue, I met twitter friend Erik Middelkoop and took a picture of him. I also met twitter friend Jeroen Snijders several times this weekend, very nice to see some twitter friends in real life, which is another great thing about visiting a darts event!

At the snackbar where we had dinner, the staff already recognized us but my dad promised him it would be our last time there! Cause it was time for the final session of an amazing tournament, where the first quarter-final was played between Boris Krcmar and Danny Noppert. For the third game in a row, Noppert got in a real battle and for the second game running he had to come back, and did as he won 6-5 again!! Very well done to Krcmar though, what a tournament for the big Croatian! Next up was Rydz against Whitlock, and Whitlock's tournament came to an end, as he lost 3-6 and Callan Rydz went into his first ever Eurotour semi-final! Gilding vs Van Duijvenbode turned out to be another belter and while the, pretty big, crowd was on DVD's side (they weren't very kind to Gilding, despite he asked them to be kind in his interview earlier on), it was Gilding who threw the game of his life probably, and won 6-3 with a 104 average! 

Smith vs King was next, and I thought it should be an easy win for Smith however, soon he was 0-3 down. Smith fought back though, and managed to turn it around in a 6-4 win. Time for the semi-finals, where it was Noppert against Rydz. At the walk-on, I noticed that Rydz had a sweaty hand. Last time that happened was with Arjan Konterman, and he didn't even win a leg against Noppert so that wasn't a very good sign for Rydz. And indeed, it didn't end well for him as he lost 2-7 with an average well under 80! Still a great weekend in general for him though, and the Dutch crowd got what they wanted: a Dutch finalist!

But who would make the final too? It was Smith against Gilding, 2 men who played brilliant all weekend. Once again both men averaged in the high 90's, and his experience in this stage of tournaments probably helped for Smith who won 7-4. We got a repeat of the UK Open final! A 20 minute break before that final started, and some great songs, like there have been the whole weekend got the crowd going. I took a picture with some other darts twitter friends (former Dutch Darts guest Pim Huberts, Patrick Bus and Mike Hooiveld). The Germans weren't there on the sunday, but the Belgians in front of us were with even more family and still asking for flights.. Anyway, time for the final and it was a very close one. The crowd obviously wanted Noppert to win, but Dmith constantly led. Noppert fought back with big finishes though, as it was 7-7. Leg 15 was won by Smith who picked up his 5th Eurotour title and was the deserved winner! I managed to stand next to the stage when the trophies were given, which was a great sight and then it was time to go. What an event this was, I truly enjoyed it as a fan! Next week at the WDF Dutch Open, I'll be there as a player and with a press card, so two different perspectives there!