Last month they played as a team during the World Cup of Darts, tonight they faced each other at the World Matchplay. At stake: a spot in the semi-finals of the prestigious summer tournament. It was no surprise that Van Duijvenbode and Noppert were in the quarterfinals, given their performances in recent weeks. They both won a Players Championship. On the way to the quarterfinals, Van Duijvenbode (Ryan Searle, Michael Smith) and Noppert (Brendan Dolan, Daryl Gurney) also dealt with not the least players.
The start of the match was for Noppert. He quickly placed the break via double ten and Van Duijvenbode had to chase. The Westlander went into the first break with a 1-4 deficit, mainly because he was far from sharp on the doubles: 1 out of 13. After that it started to get better. Van Duijvenbode was the better match in scoring and his doubles also went better. At Noppert, on the other hand, things started a bit more difficult.
But the seventeenth leg proved that things can go weird in darts. Noppert put himself by hanging and strangling himself on a 150-finish with Van Duijvenbode on 64. The moment it didn’t work out at all with the Friesian, he suddenly threw out 150 and dealt Van Duijvenbode a tap.
Van Duijvenbode never made up for the deficit and eventually lost 11-16 to Noppert, who took the win via bullseye. In the semifinals, the Frisian will meet the winner of the match between Gerwyn Price and José De Sousa later in the evening.
On Thursday evening, Michael van Gerwen already reached the semi-finals after a 16-14 victory over Nathan Aspinall. He will compete against Dimitri Van den Bergh. Van Gerwen is the only Dutch darts player to win the World Matchplay. He did that in 2015 and in 2016.
Watch our videos about World Cup darts below.