On Tuesday, two of the five German starters will face the opening hurdle at the 2024 Darts World Cup. Dragutin Horvat and Ricardo Pietreczko are playing their first matches. Before the Germans take the oche, however, the English representatives had a bad day.
In the early session, Ian White, quarter-finalist in 2014 and currently number 55 in the Order of Merit, completely surprisingly had to admit defeat to the Japanese outsider Tomoya Goto 1:3. Among other things, Goto played an 11-darter and hit seven 180s on his debut at Alexandra Palace.
The key to the Asian’s success, however, was a rate of 47.6 percent on doubles, White only achieved 25.9 percent and was therefore unable to benefit from a slightly higher average (93.39 to 90.71).
In the next round, Goto will face No. 19 seed Ryan Searle.
The outcome of the following game was no less surprising: The Swede Jeffrey de Graaf defeated Ritchie Edhouse 3-2. “Madhouse”, as the Englishman is called, even gave away a match dart.
Co-favorite has to give up the Darts World Cup
Then the favorite Croatian Boris Krcmar (number 61 in the Order of Merit) ensures that the next English representative is eliminated with a 3-1 win against Keegan Brown (number 99 in the Order of Merit) before the evening is over for the darts stars from the island should get worse.
In the last game of the first session of the fifth day of the World Cup, Canadian Matt Campbell caused a bang by defeating four-time semi-finalist James “The Machine” Wade (number 13 on the Order of Merit) 3-2.
For Wade, who only had to enter the tournament in the round of 32 due to his world ranking position, it is the second time in a row that he has failed at his opening hurdle.
Campbell, number 57 in the world, won a game on the World Cup stage for the first time on Sunday. The “Ginja Ninja” won 3-2 against Lourence Ilagan from the Philippines. The 34-year-old had lost his first round matches in each of the past four years.
“This is definitely the biggest win of my career so far, especially because of where it took place,” Campbell said after his success, according to “PDC.tv”. “Now I’m looking forward to enjoying Christmas and seeing how far I can go in this tournament.
In the evening, the German starters Dragutin Horvat and Ricardo Pietreczko, among others, intervene in the action, before Steve Beaton can prevent the English total debacle. Top favorite Michael van Gerwen ends the evening.