Quarter-Final for Dirk van Duijvenbode at Players Championship 5

Wim Blokpoel - Today the PDC Pro Tour continued again with a series of 4 Players Championships, starting with Players Championship 5. The day started with the bad news that Geert Nentjes had to withdraw for the 4 events this week after traveling issues. This was a sign for how this day would go for Dutch Darts: it wasn’t very succesfull. 

The best run today came from the Dutchman who probably is in the best form right now: Aubergenius Dirk van Duijvenbode. DVD started today with an absolutely astonishing 109.9 average to demolish Mickey Mansell 6-0, despite Mansell averaging 100.3 himself. It was another 100+ average in round 2 for Dirk as he averaged 102.7 in a great match where he won 6-3 against Darren Webster. Into the last 32, van Duijvenbode even improved again, to a 106.9 and a 6-2 win against former World Championship finalist Kirk Shepherd. So far DVD had an absolutely brilliant day, and it even got better! An absolutely shocking average of 112.7 in round 4 and still Dirk had to survive 4 matchdarts to beat Austrian Mensur Suljovic 6-5. The Quarter-Final however was the end as Dirk had his first average below 100, and missed matchdarts himself, eventually he lost 5-6 to Alan Soutar. Still a brilliant day for Dirk van Duijvenbode, if he continues like that this week he has a very big chance of winning his first PDC senior title.

Purmerend’s Vincent van der Voort had to play without best mate Michael van Gerwen who pulled out of this weeks tournaments. VVDV did that with success through, in round 1  it was a comfortable 6-1 win against Austrian Michael Rasztovits. In round 2 VVDV got into a tough battle but he managed to end it beating Croatian Boris Krčmar 6-4. In the last 32 however Van der Voort had a very big defeat, 1-6 against Suljovic. Hopefully he’ll play even better tomorrow!

It was quite a bad day for Dutch Darts in general, as we only had 3 more Dutch wins. All of those were against fellow Dutchmen as well! Berry van Peer beat Niels Zonneveld 6-2 before losing 1-6 to eventual finalist Michael Smith. Deventer’s Derk Telnekes had a surprising 6-5 victory over Jeffrey de Zwaan. In round 2 however, he lost 4-6 to Peter Snakebite Wright. Finally, Gino Vos, one of the replacements for withdrawn tourcard holders, beat Martijn Kleermaker 6-3. In round 2 Vos got edged out 5-6 by Scottish Andy Boulton.

Apart from those 3 first rounds, these were the other Dutchmen who lost in round 1 already: five time world champion Raymond van Barneveld averaged 99 but it wasn’t enough as he lost 4-6 to Mervyn King who averaged over 101 himself. Danny Noppert lost for the first time in 17 Players Championship events in round 1, 3-6 to Scotty Dog Scott Mitchell. Jermaine Wattimena averaged a solid 97 but still lost 3-6 to Jason Heaver. Jelle Klaasen had a brilliant match against Luke Humphries. The Cobra got 4-0 up while averaging over 110, UK Open finalist Humphries fought back though and eventually Klaasen got edged out 5-6 while averaging 102. Ron Meulenkamp got edged out 5-6 as well, against Polish Krzysztof Ratajski. Another 5-6 defeat was for talented Luc Peters, against Peter Hudson. Lorenzo Pronk didn’t have his day, he got demolished 0-6 by Madars Razma. Finally, Maik Kuivenhoven lost 3-6 to Boris Krčmar. 

Today wasn’t the best day for Dutch darts, but the first pro tour week started the same, and endes brilliantly anyway, including RVB winning a title. So let’s hope tomorrow will be more succesfull!