Nentjes reaches final, 4 Dutch players in last 8

Wim Blokpoel - Today we saw Q-School Final Stage start, with 128 players in both EU and UK trying to get one of the 29 tourcards. Today in the EU 1 tourcard was givdn for the event. This is the case all 4 days and then the top 8 of the order of merit all get a card as well. 2019/2020 tourcard holder Geert Nentjes already did a good job at day 1 by reaching the final! Nentjes started with his best performance in round 1 as he averaged 94.7 to beat Rowby-John Rodriguez 6-5. Next a comfortable 6-2 win against Swedish Johan Engstrom. In the last 32 Nentjes won another last leg decider, this time against Pero Ljubic. The last 16 however, was easy again with a 6-1 win against Robert Marijanovic. In the Quarter-finals it was a 6-5 win once more against fellow Dutchman Wesley Plaisier. In the semi’s it was another easy win for Nentjes, 6-2 against Martin Schindler. In the final, Nentjes averaged 91.9 but it was not enough as he lost 4-6 to Geert de Vos. It was a good day for Geert, as he tops the order of merit after day 1!

Along with Nentjes, there were 3 more Dutch playeds who did a very good job by eeaching the Quarter-finals. Lorenzo Pronk was one of them as he surprised us once more. Pronk started with his best performance: a 91 average to beat Patrick Tringler 6-2. It was followed by a 6-4 win against Polish talent Sebastian Bialecki. In the last 32 Pronk had another very impressive victory, 6-2 against Ricardo Pietreczko. And in thr last 16 Pronk beat a huge name in Czech talent Adam Gawlas 6-4. In his quarter-final, Pronk even surprised once more! He beat former BDO World Championship semi-finalist Mario Vandenbogaerde 6-5! Pronk then in the last 4 lost 2-6 to Geert de Vos, but it’s been a brilliant first day for Pronk! Another quarter-finalist was former Dutch Open chanpion Richard Veenstra, who in round 1 had an astonishing average of 103.7 in demolishing fellow Dutchman Rients Visser 6-0. Veenstra followed it by 2 90+ averages against 2 more Dutchmen in Jeremy van der Winkel and Gino Vos who he beat 6-3 and 6-2. Finally in the last 16 Veenstra won once more against a Dutchman, as he won 6-2 against Ryan de Vreede. In the last 8 Veenstra also lost to eventual champion Geert de Vos, 3-6, but Veenstra is in the top 8 of the order of merit atm! And so is Wesley Plaisier, who also started great with a 96,3 average in beating German Niko Springer 6-1. He then beat Kay Smeets 6-2 and Belgian Robbie Knops 6-5. In the last 16 Plaisier produced an impressive 6-2 victory against Spanish Toni Alcinas, but he also lost in the last 8, 5-6 against Nentjes. So now there are 4 Dutchmen in the top 8 of the order of merit!

Finally, 3 more Dutchmen reached the last 16. Earlier mentioned Ryan de Vreede lost to Veenstra, but before that won 6-2 against Daniel Meyer. He also won 6-3 against Belgian Brian Raman in the last 64. The last 32 saw De Vreedes best match as he averaged 86,3 in a 6-4 victory against Michael Rasztovits. Another Dutchmen in the last 16 was 5-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld! RVB started with beating 3 fellow Dutchmen: Davy Proosten 6-2, Jaimy van de Weerd 6-1 with a 96.5 average and in the last 32 Patrick van den Bogaard 6-2 with an astonishing 101.2 average. In the last 16 RVB even did better with a 101.3 average! Unfortunately though this wasn’t enough as he lost 4-6 against Martin Schindler who averaged a 100 himself. The last Dutchman in the last 16 was former Lakeside semi-finalist Jan Dekker! Dekker started with 2 tough wins where he didn’t produce incredible stuff but still won 6-3 against Sven Hilling and 6-4 against Jeroen Mioch. In the last 32 though Dekker already was better, averaged 84 and won 6-2 against Danish Claus Nielsen. In the last 16 Dekker lost 3-6 to Vandenbogaerde but still earned 2 important points as well. Good luck to all Dutch players tomorrow!!