Early exits for Dutch players at Hungarian Darts Trophy

Wim Blokpoel - Along with the WDF events, last weekend the very first PDC European Tour of 2021 had been held in Budapest: the Hungarian Darts Trophy. 5 Dutchmen were involved after Danny Noppert had to withdraw for personal reasons. 3 of them started in round 1.

Geert Nentjes from Urk made his Eurotour debut! He played against Belgian Geert de Vos in the battle of the Geerts! Unfortunately Nentjes missed too many doubles and lost 2-6. Another Eurotour debutant was former Lakeside semi-finalist Richard Veenstra who won the EU non tourcard holders qualifier. Veenstra played former World Youth Champion Keegan Brown in round 1, and surprisingly won the game! A 6-4 win for ‘Flyers’ Veenstra as he moved into the last 32. Vincent van der Voort played Daryl Gurney, a tough first round draw. Gurney played great as he averaged 99,5 to beat the Dutch Destroyer 6-2, and we went on to round 2 with 3 Dutch players.

In round 2 we started with Dirk ‘Aubergenius’ Van Duijvenbode who was seeded for the first time in an Eurotour event. DVD played Irish talent Keane Barry, and unfortunately it was another poor performance from a Dutchman as Van Duijvenbode averaged only 84,7 and lost 3-6 to Barry. He needs to improve from that before the World Cup starts! His world cup partner and Dutch number one Michael van Gerwen started his tournament against Gurney. A brilliant game from both went on to 5-4 for MVG, when Gurney missed the big number so didn’t get the chance to make it 5-5 and Van Gerwen hit the double to win 6-4. An average of 101,2 for Gurney and 101,5 for MVG as he went through to the last 16. Richard Veenstra played World number one Gerwyn Price next and despite going 2-1 up, and having a crowd booing Price, Price beat him 6-4 and even missed Double 12 for a nine-darter.

One Dutchman left in the last 16 and it was Van Gerwen who played ‘The History Maker’ Brendan Dolan. The game was a very close one after MVG got 5-3 up but missed loads of matchdarts and it became 5-5. From there Dolan somehow sneeked through as he beat MVG 6-5 despite MVG averaged 4,5 points higher (99,7). So no Dutchmen made the quarter-finals and it was a very disappointing weekend in Budapest.