Michael van Gerwen wins Players Championship 10

Wim Blokpoel - Yesterday PDC Players Championship 10 was played in Barnsley.

Dutch number one Michael van Gerwen started with a 6-3 win over Brett Claydon. He then survived matchdarts to beat Ryan Meikle 6-5 with an average of 101,2! In the last 32 Van Gerwen played Madars Razma who he beat 6-3, and he followed it with another 6-3 win in round 4 over Brendan Dolan, while averaging 106,7! In the Quarter-finals Mighty Mike played on stream where he edged out Adrian Lewis 6-5. In the semi’s, it was another last leg as Van Gerwen came back from 3-6 down to beat José de Sousa 7-6! Van Gerwen averaged just over a ton in that amazing comeback. In the final Van Gerwen played World Number One and World Champion Peter Wright. MVG was 0-4 down but fought back to 4-4, 5-4, 6-4, 7-4 and eventually won 8 legs on the spin for an 8-4 win in the final to pick up his third title of the year!! Two incredible comebacks from MVG in his last 2 games, but a very deserved win for the World Number Three. 

‘Hawkeye’ Kevin Doets averaged 97 in the last 128 as he beat German Ricardo Pietreczko 6-3. In round 2 it was a very easy 6-1 win for Doets over Chris Dobey! In the last 32 however, Doets lost 4-6 to Canadian Jeff Smith. Uitgeest’s Niels Zonneveld started amazing as he averaged 100,2 in a 6-0 whitewash over World Number Four Michael Smith!! In the last 64 Zonneveld even improved, as it was his best average ever in a pro tour game: 103 in a 6-4 win over Belgian Mario Vandenbogaerde! In his board final Zonneveld was edged out 5-6 by Lewis, but still a great day. Berry van Peer had a great 6-4 win over Simon Whitlock in round 1. ‘Bionic’ then edged out fellow Dutchman Martijn Kleermaker 6-5 before he lost in round 3, 5-6 to De Sousa.

Before his defeat, Kleermaker did edge out Ritchie Edhouse on the stream 6-5 with an average of 97,6. Jermaine Wattimena survived a matchdart in round 1 as he beat fellow Dutchman Jeffrey de Zwaan 6-5, but then lost 5-6 himself to Damon Heta in round 2 who averaged an unreal 103,6. Urk’s Geert Nentjes averaged 101,3 in round 1 in a 6-0 whitewash over Peter Hudson, but also lost in the last 64 4-6 to Wright despite even averaging 102,3!! Dutch Darting Legend Raymond van Barneveld beat Callan Rydz 6-4, but then lost 2-6 to Martin Lukeman. Final Dutch victory of the day was for Danny Noppert, who won a Dutch tie against Ron ‘The Bomb’ Meulenkamp 6-2. Noppert then lost in round 2 3-6 to Croatian Boris Krcmar.

Friday’s winner Danny Jansen already lost in round 1 one day later, 5-6 to Richie Burnett.

Other Dutch first round defeats came from: Jules van Dongen (3-6 against Ryan Joyce), Vincent van der Voort (5-6 against Dimitri van den Bergh), Dirk van Duijvenbode (2-6 against Michael Unterbuchner), Maik Kuivenhoven (4-6 against Lewis Williams), Jimmy Hendriks (3-6 against Ryan Searle), Damian Mol (1-6 against Jonny Clayton) and Luc Peters (3-6 against Andy Boulton.