Semi-final for Van Duijvenbode at PC25

Wim Blokpoel - The last 2 days the PDC Pro Tour action confinued. On tuesday that was with Players Championship 24.

After having made the final of the European Championship last weekend, Michael van Gerwen was looking to finally get his first ranking title of 2021. In the first round a brilliant average of 107,4 saw the Dutch number one start well, beating Gary Blades 6-0. In round 2 MVG averaged 101,4 as he saw off Scottish Ryan Murray 6-3. In his board final Mighty Mike played Ryan Joyce, who he beat 6-1 as he averaged 105,1. In the last 16 after 3 amazing games Van Gerwen averaged brilliant once more: 107,3. However, it wasn’t enough ridiculously! Ryan Searle beat him 6-3 on stream as Searle averaged 104 himself.

‘Aubergenius’ Dirk van Duijvenbode started PC24 with a 6-3 win against Belgian Geert de Vos, and followed that in the last 64 with a 6-4 win over fellow Dutchman Ron ‘The Bomb’ Meulenkamp. In round 3 DVD lost 4-6 to Mickey Mansell. Another Dutchman who started well was Vincent van der Voort. He beat Welshman Lewis Williams comfortably 6-1. In the second round VVDV edged out Ricky Evans 6-5 with an average of 97,1. In the last 32 the Dutch Destroyer got edged out himself, 5-6 to eventual champion Dimitri van den Bergh. Derk Telnekes from Deventer caused a massive upset in round 1 as he beat 7th seed Damon Heta 6-5! An all Dutch clash was followed, as Telnekes beat Berry van Peer 6-4. In his first board final in a very long time, Telnekes was defeated as he lost 1-6 to an astonishing Dave Chisnall. 

Before their earlier mentioned second round defeats, Meulenkamp and Van Peer managed to win against respectively Rowby-John Rodriguez (6-2) and Adam Hunt (6-4). Jelle Klaasen managed to upset Dutch number 2 Danny Noppert, as The Cobra beat him 6-3 in round 1! A round later Klaasen lost to Irish Keane Barry (4-6). Uitgeest’s Niels Zonneveld managed to beat Jack Main 6-4, and then lost in round 2 3-6 to José de Sousa, while Westervoort’s Jermaine Wattimena edged out fellow Dutchman Maik Kuivenhoven 6-5 before getting destroyed by Gary Anderson with 1-6. Final Dutch win came from the talented Kevin Doets, who averaged 97,2 and surprised by beating Austrian Mensur Suljovic 6-2. In the last 64 Doets lost to Canadian Jeff Smith 3-6. 

An unlucky first round defeat for five time world champ Raymond van Barneveld as he averaged 96,7 but still lost 2-6 to Jamie Hughes who averaged 104,4. Even more unlucky was Jeffrey de Zwaan as he averaged 99,7 and still lost 4-6 to Chris Dobey.

3 more Dutch first round defeats came from: Martijn Kleermaker (5-6 against Mansell), Luc Peters (3-6 against Ricky Evans) and Geert Nentjes (5-6 against Scott Mitchell)

Yesterday we continued with PC25. We started with another first round clash, between ‘Aubergenius’ Dirk van Duijvenbode and ‘The Spear’ Geert Nentjes. DVD won it 6-3. In round 2 Van Duijvenbode averaged 101,3 in a 6-3 win against Lisa Ashton! In his board final Dirk played tuesdays finalist Adrian Lewis and managed to whitewash him! An average of 104,9 saw DVD beat Lewis 6-0! Into the last 16 we had another Dutch clash between Van Duijvenbode and Michael van Gerwen. And for the very first time in his career, DVD beat MVG! 101,2 average for Van Duijvenbode, 103,0 for Van Gerwen but it was Van Duijvenbode who won 6-3. In the quarter-finals Van Duijvenbode had another Dutch opponent: Maik Kuivenhoven! Kuivenhoven didn’t play well this game and Van Duijvenbode comfortably beat him 6-2. In the semi-finals Aubergenius played Callan Rydz. Van Duijvenbode lost it 1-7, to the eventual champion, but it was still a very good day for him after some poor months.

Before that quarter-final loss Kuivenhoven averaged 95,8 to beat John Brown 6-3. In the last 64 he then beat Scott Mitchell 6-2 to go into round 3. Here he caused an upset as he won 6-2 against the numer 3 seed Michael Smith! In the 4th round Kuivenhoven beat another Smith, Jeff, 6-4 before losing to Van Duijvenbode.

Before losing to DVD, Van Gerwen had a very impressive day. In the last 128 he whitewashed German Michael Unterbuchner 6-0, and then in round 2 averaged 100,2 to whitewash former World Champion Steve Beaton as well 6-0. MVG even made it 18-0 in legs in round 3 as he also won 6-0 against Madars Razma from Latvia while averaging 102,5. 

Jelle Klaasen is still fighting to somehow manage to keep his tourcard. The former World Champion started today with an easy 6-1 win against Kevin McDine. In round 2 World Cup Champion John Henderson was also defeated 6-3. In the last 32 Klaasen missed matchdarts though, as he lost 5-6 to German Martin Schindler. 

In another Dutch clash in round 1, Dutch number 2 Danny Noppert beat Niels Zonneveld 6-4. Noppert then surprisingly lost heavily 1-6 to Jeff Smith. Kevin Doets got another win, this time 6-4 against Kai Fan Leung. Doets then lost to Mensur Suljovic 5-6 who got revenge after having lost to Doets at PC24. Luc Peters got an impressive 6-2 win against Super Ted Evetts, but then lost 1-6 to European Champion Rob Cross. Jermaine Wattimena is still not guaranteed to be at the 2022 World Championship but did a great job in beating Jason Heaver 6-3 in round 1. In round 2 Wattimena lost 4-6 to Spanish José Justicia despite averaging 100,5. Dutch Destroyer Vincent van der Voort started in the last 128 with a 6-2 win against Polish Krzysztof Kciuk, but then lost 2-6 to Ryan Meikle in the second round himself. The biggest win of round 2 probably came from Berry van Peer. Van Peer caused an upset by beating 7 seed Damon Heta 6-5 while averaging 97,7! Van Peer then in round 2 lost 5-6 himself to Irish Willie O’Connor.

A second first round defeat for Raymond van Barneveld in a row, again with a high average: 100,5! He still lost 5-6 to Mitchell. Martijn Kleermaker also went out in round 1 back to back, he averaged 96 but lost 5-6 to Scottish Alan Soutar. 

3 more first round defeats came from: Derk Telnekes (0-6 against Chris Dobey), Jeffrey de Zwaan (5-6 against Ciaran Teehan) and Ron Meulenkamp (4-6 against Ryan Searle).