Quarter-final for VVDV at Players Championship 22

Wim Blokpoel - After a disappointing Players Championship 21 on monday, where Michael van Gerwen and Martijn Kleermaker were the only 2 Dutchmen in the third round (where both lost: Kleermaker to Joe Cullen and MVG to Daryl Gurney despite averaging 112), it was on tuesday time for Players Championship 22 of 2021.

Vincent van der Voort started this day with an average of almost 97 and a 6-3 win against Jake Jones.In round 2 it was another 6-3 win for the Dutch Destroyer, this time to beat Ryan Joyce. In the last 32 VVDV beat Scott Mitchell with an average of over 98, becoming the first Dutchman this week to make round 4! In this round the man from Purmerend beat Australian Damon Heta as well, 6-4! Into the quarter-finals was Vincent, and here he played Belgian Dimitri van den Bergh. Unfortunately VVDV lost this streamed game 3-6, but still a very good day for him!

Martijn Kleermaker had a first good day in this super series, and started good again as he beat World Youth Champion Bradley Brooks 6-1! In the last 64 Kleermaker had another 6-1 win, averaging 98, against Adam Hunt. In round 3 Kleermaker had his best performance of the day as he beat Gerwyn Price 6-2 with an average of 104,5! Having only lost 4 legs today, and just beat the world number one, it looked good for Kleermaker into round 4. Here however, he got 2-5 down to Luke Woodhouse. Kleermaker fought back all the way to 5-5, and was waiting on 25 for the match, but unfortunately Woodhouse took out 62 in 2 darts to beat him. Still another very solid day for the man from Harderwijk though!

After losing to Matchplay Champion Peter Wright in round 1 yesterday, five time world champion Raymond van Barneveld had a better start today! He beat Austrian Michael Rasztovits 6-4 and in round 2 RVB got into an all Dutch clash with young talent Kevin Doets. After being 3-5 down RVB fought back to 5-5, and hit a 15-darter in the decider to win it 6-5! In his board final however, Barney lost 2-6 to eventual champion ‘Heavy Metal’ Ryan Searle.

Before losing to RVB as mentioned, Kevin Doets did manage to beat an all time grear Dutchman in Dutch number one Michael van Gerwen 6-4, with an average of 102,2! Danny Noppert started comfortably with a 6-0 whitewash against Krzysztof Kciuk, before he lost 4-6 to Andrew Gilding quite surprisingly. Talking about surprises, Maik Kuivenhoven beat another big player today: Joe Cullen, with 6-4! Kuivenhoven averaged 101,8 in that one, but lost a round later himself 2-6 to Irish Steve Lennon. Jermaine Wattimena from Westervoort started today solid in beating Ryan Meikle 6-4, however then surprisingly lost 5-6 to Sean Fisher! Geert Nentjes had the final Dutch win of today as he demolished Greece’s number one John Michael 6-0. ‘The spear’ Nentjes then lost 1-6 to Jonny Clayton.

Apart from MVG there were more Dutchmen losing in round 1. Jelle Klaasen lost on stream, 3-6 to Australia’s number one Simon Whitlock. Luc Peters lost 3-6 on stream himself, to Keane Barry. Ron Meulenkamp did manage to hit his second nine-darter in a month time! However, Meulenkamp still lost 5-6 to Austrian Rusty-Jake Rodriguez.

More defeats came from: Niels Zonneveld (3-6 to Joe Murnan), Jeffrey de Zwaan (5-6 to Lukas Wenig), Berry van Peer (0-6 to Clayton) and Dirk van Duijvenbode (5-6 to Peter Jacques).