Jeffrey de Graaf through to final stage

Wim Blokpoel - Today was the first day for Group B of European Q-School 2021! This group included loads more of very talented Dutch players. One of the 4 players coming through was one of those talented Dutch players: former tourcard holder and World Championship participant Jeffrey de Graaf. The 30-year-old Dutchman started his day with his best performance, when he averaged almost 90 in a 6-2 win over German Dominik Thiel. In the last 64 it was a narrow 6-5 win against fellow Dutchman Willem Mandigers. Round 3 saw De Graaf beating former World Champion Christian Kist auite comfortable 6-3, after which De Graaf in the last 16 beat another Dutchman in Ryan de Vreede, 6-4. In his final, Jeffrey de Graaf beat the 4th Dutchman in a row already in Dutch talent Danny van Trijp. And with that final win, De Graaf is already through to final stage, and we will see him back on sunday.

Two more Dutch players reached the final, which gave them 3 points, and 3 points is probably enough to get to final stage as well (In Group A 2, and for most players even 1 point in 3 days was enough). First of all, Danny van Trijp who as earlier mentioned lost in that final to De Graaf, Van Trijp, who made his UK Open debut in 2020, had a good day, beating big names as José Justicia and Dragutin Horvat. The other Dutchman in the final was Arjan Konterman, who we saw in some pro tour events in 2020. Konterman averaged high 80’s/low 90’s, and in his first 4 matches only lost 3 legs. This impressive performance came to an end against Austrian Zoran Lerchbacher who beat him 6-3 in their final. However, those 2 players are very probably through to final stage as well! 

Today also saw an incredible amount of 5 Dutchman into the last 16, which made a total of 8/16 = 50% of the last 16 participants being Dutch! Those 5 did great buisness by earning 2 points already on day 1. First of all we saw Ryan de Vreede, who lost to earlier mentioned De Graaf. A very impressive run to the last 16 came from young Dutch talent Luc Peters, who averaged almost 90 in beating Leonard Gates 6-1, and then averaged 94 and 97 in beating Danish Duo Tom Veje Kristensen and Michael Seemann 6-2 and 6-3. Another brilliant 96 average came in the last 16 from Peters, although he just lost 5-6 to van Trijp. Brilliant day for Peters though, and if he keeps playing like this he will certainly go far this year. Former tourcard holder Jimmy Hendriks reached the last 16 as well, in which he lost 3-6 to Belgian Davyd Venken. A very surprising name in the last 16 is Martijn Dragt. Dragt averaged almost 86 in destroying Dutch talent Levy Frauenfelder 6-0 in the last 32! In the last 16 though, Dragt lost 4-6 to Austrian talent Rusty-Jake Rodriguez. Last but not least, Dutch Maikel Venema reached the last 16. Venema, who reached the last 32 of the Dutch Open last year, had some impressibe wins, especially in beating Veniamin Symeonidis 6-3 in round 1. Despite averaging 82,6 Venema lost 0-6 in the last 16 against Belgian Patrick Bulen. In general, another good day for Dutch Darts! Onto tomorrow!