Quarter-Final for Van der Voort at Players Championship 7

Wim Blokpoel - Today we had the third pro tour of the week, Players Championship 7 2021. There have been 3 times a making the last 8 in 2 days so far. Today this became 4 in 3 days.

Vincent van der Voort had 2 decent days making his board final in both of them. today he started great again, as he averages 99.1 in whitewashing Lisa Ashton 6-0 in round 1. In the last 64 VVDV played on stream against JDC and MAD chairman Steve Brown. VVDV had a comfortable 6-2 victory over Brown with another high 90’s average. Into his third board final in 3 days was Vincent, this one was different though, as he did win it this time! Van der Voort only averaged 89.2 but on a miraculous way got over the line against Belgian Geert de Vos despite De Vos averaging over 100. In the last 16 Vincent had an all Dutch clash with Maik Kuivenhoven. VVDV had his best performance of the day here, as he averaged 101.7 in a 6-2 win. In the quarter-finals, unfortunately again a Dutchman lost, Van der Voort lost surprisingly 4-6 to Jason Heaver. Hopefully a Dutch semi-finalist tomorrow then!

As earlier mentioned, Maik Kuivenhoven had his first good day of the year so far. Kuivenhoven started with his best performance of today as he averaged over 96 to produce a shock against South African Devon Petersen in round 1: Kuivenhoven a 6-4 winner. In round 2 he faced Scottish Alan Soutar. Another great win for Maik as he edged Soutar out 6-5. In his board final Kuivenhoven played Russian Boris Koltsov, who he beat just like he did at the UK Open a couple of weeks ago, 6-4 this time. As mentioned earlier in round 4 Kuivenhoven lost to Van der Voort but still a great day for Maik Kuivenhoven!

It was another decent day for Dutch Darts, as 2 more Dutchmen made their board final. Yesterday, Danny Noppert reached his board final as well in which he lost to Gino Vos. Danny managed to get revenge over Gino though, as he beat him 6-4 in round 1 today. In the last 64 Noppert now faced Irish William O’Connor on stream. Ir was a very close and tense game, O’Connor missed quite some darts to make it 5-5, but then Danny Noppert managed to get a 6-4 win. In his board final, ‘The Freeze’ faced former Lakeside World Champion Scott Mitchell. Noppert didn’t took his changes early in the match, and in the end Mitchell didn’t gave him any more chances. In thr last leg Danny was on 40 points but didn’t get a shot anymore, as Scott Mitchell already hit the winning double himself.

Jermaine Wattimena had 2 disappointing days, but today he started with a win, 6-3 over Welshman Nick Kenny. In round 2 ‘The Machine Gun’ from Westervoort faced English talent Ryan Meikle, and Wattimena managed to win it 6-4. In the last 32 Wattimena faced Irish Steve Lennon, however unfortunately Wattimena lost 3-6 to Lennon.

Only 3 more Dutch wins to go. The most impressive one came from Ron The Bomb Meulenkamp. The 32-year old Meulenkamp from Almere played on stream against two time World Champion Adrian Lewis. Meulenkamp started the match with 2 brilliant finishes: a 170 (!!!) which was followed by 98 in 2 darts. Lewis fought back but Meulenkamp managed to get over the line quite comfortably in the end, 6-2 averaging over 98. However, in round 2 Michael Smith averaged over 104 as Meulenkamp lost to him 3-6. Another win came from five time world champion Raymond van Barneveld aa he beat Matthew Edgar 6-3 in round 1, averaging over 95. RVB then got a déja vu, as he lost, just like at the World’s of 2019, to Lithuanian Darius Labanauskas. It was even 1-6 this time despite RVB averaging 97,5. The final win came from Luc Peters, as he beat German Martin Schindler 6-4. In round 2, Peters lost 4-6 himself to William Borland.

Apart from Vos against Noppert, 8 more Dutch defeats came in round 1 already. The most unlucky one came from Dirk van Duijvenbode, as he averaged exactly 100 and still lost 5-6 to prison officer Aaron Beeney. Another narrow 5-6 defeat came from Leidschendam’s Jeffrey de Zwaan against German number one Gabriel Clemens. Yesterday’s quarter-finalist Niels Zonneveld suffered a 3-6 defeat in round 1 today to Belgian Kim Huybrechts. Other defeats came from: Martijn Kleermaker (3-6 against Ted Evetts), Derk Telnekes (3-6 against Ryan Murray), Lorenzo Pronk (2-6 against Kirk Shepherd), Berry van Peer (1-6 against Simon Whitlock) and Jelle Klaasen (2-6 against Nathan Aspinall in the battle of the snakes). 

3 decent days for Dutch Darts, let’s hope day 4 will be more than decent though!