Nentjes wins tourcard, RVB reaches Semi-Finals

Wim Blokpoel - Today was a very good day for Dutch darts! We even saw a Dutch player earning a tourcard: 2019/2020 tourcard holder Geert Nentjes will keep his tourcard for 2 more years. The young talent from Urk started the day with a 6-3 win against Belgian Patrick Bulen. In round 2, Nentjes escaped 6-5 against German Franz Roetzsch despite a lower average. Nentjes was an expert in last legs today, because in both round 3 and 4 he won 6-5 again, against Austrian Patrick Tringler and German Michael Unterbuchner. Against Unterbuchner Nentjes averaged an astonishing 96. Into the Quarter-Finals and Nentjes faced the surprising Czech Republic player Michal Smejda, who he beat 6-4 with an 88 average. The last 4 saw Nentjes face a well-known player: 5 time champion of the world Raymond van Barneveld. Nentjes needed another last leg, and won 6-5 with a 95 average. Into the final, for the second dsy in a row. This made it very very likely that Nentjes earned his tourcard anyway. But Nentjes made sure that he gets it, as he survived matchdart to have a 5th 6-5 victory for the day against Russian Boris Koltsov. A brilliant day for Geert Nentjes, who has his tourcard for 2 more years now, which makes him the second ‘new’ tourcard holder from Holland along with Berry van Peer.

But there was more Dutch succes. As mentioned earlier, Raymond van Barneveld is one step closer to his comeback. He reached the last 4 today in which he lost to Nentjes. RVB started with 2 99 averages to beat Daniel Meyer 6-0 and Dutch talent Luc Peters 6-4. The 99 averages were followed by 2 89 averages, to win 6-2 against Moreno Blom, and 6-4 against German Lukas Wenig who had the change to go 5-4 up but didn’t take it. In the quarter-finals RVB beat fellow Dutchman Gino Vos 6-5 with a great 95.6 average. RVB is now second on the order of merit, in which the top 8 gets a tourcard. Gino Vos lost to RVB in the last 8 and is 6th on the order of merit now. Vos started with an impressive 6-0 win against Polish talent Sebastian Bialecki. In the last 64 it was difficult, but Vos got over the line 6-4 against Stefan Bellmont. Round 3 was easier again, 6-3 against Canadian Gary Mawson with a 93 average. The last 16 was even easier as Vos won 6-0 against John Michael who didn’t play anywhere near his best. The last Quarter-finalist today was Davy Proosten who started with a 6-0 win against Mikel van Maastrigt and then beat another Dutchman, Jeffrey de Graaf, 6-3. In round 3 Proosten had an easy 6-1 victory against Croatian Pero Ljubic and in the last 16 Proosten had his best match of the day as he averaged 95.1 to beat Niels Zonneveld. In the Quarter-finals, Proosten lost 1-6 to eventual finalist Boris Koltsov, and now is on place 15 on the order of merit, with some more work to do in the final 2 days.

So Niels Zonneveld also reached the last 16, he started with a 90 average to beat fellow Dutchman Arjan Konterman 6-4. He then won 6-2 against both Germans Florian Hempel and Niko Springer. Then in the last 16 he lost to earlier mentioned Davy Proosten. Zonneveld now has 13 points and some more work to do. Another Dutchman in the last 16 was talent Patrick van den Boogaard. He started with beating Dutch players Roland Hol and Jeremy van der Winkel. In the last 32 van den Boogaard averaged 87 to beat Belgium Davyd Venken in a last leg, before he lost 5-6 himself to German Christian Buns. Van den Boogaard is now on place 16 on the order of merit, and has some work to do in the next 2 days as well. Final Dutchman into the last 16 was Ryan de Vreede, who started with 6-4 wins against Jandirk de Groot and Egor Tvorogov. His best match was in the last 32 where he averaged 94.5 to beat fellow Dutchman Maikel Venema 6-5. In the last 16 De Vreede lost 1-6 to earlier mentioned Michal Smejda, but now Ryan is 9th on the order of merit, and has started quite well with final stage. 2 more days to go, van Barneveld, Vos and Pronk in the top 8 at this moment. Another update tomorrow!