This has never happened before in the history of the Darts World Cup: Ricardo Pietreczko, Gabriel Clemens, Martin Schindler and Florian Hempel are four Germans in the third round at the “Ally Pally” in London. The hardest job awaits Pietreczko “Pikachu”, which is his stage name.
His opponent’s nickname is much better known. Luke Humphries is called “Cool Hand Luke” and is the top favorite for the world title alongside the Dutchman Michael van Gerwen. The Englishman with the very soft and technically outstanding throwing movement recently won the Grand Slam of Darts and the Players Championship Finals, beat van Gerwen and celebrated a nine-darter – it doesn’t get any better than this in this sport.
Despite all these successes, “Pikachu”, who even expressed title ambitions in an interview with Sportschau before the World Cup (“It may sound arrogant, but I go to every tournament with the goal of winning it”) approach the big task on December 29th with ease as usual: “Luke Humphries is just as much of an opponent as Callan Rydz on stage. I’ll do my best.”
Pietreczko plays world class average against Rydz
And his best is absolutely impressive for a World Championship rookie in his second year on the big tour. In this win, he won the top tournament in Hildesheim, defeated the former world champions Peter Wright and van Gerwen one after the other and had an almost unbelievable double rate of 100 percent in his eight set successes in the final: He used each of his set darts on the first try .
Pietreczko also shone in his 3-2 win over the Englishman Rydz, number 30 on the seeding list of this World Cup, in which he fought his way through the depths of such a match and once again showed zero nervousness at the crucial moment: playing in the fifth set he has a world-class average of almost 110 points per shot.
Darts World Cup: Hempel, Gabriel and Clemens with prominent opponents
Big challenges also await the three other Germans in the “Ally Pally”. Gabriel Clemens will kick things off on December 28th against world number 11, “Chizzy” Dave Chisnall. Clemens had already made German darts history the previous year when he made it to the semi-finals with victories against, among others, former world champion Gerwyn Price (who was so unnerved at the time that he put on headphones).
After his spectacular comeback win against Dimitri Van den Bergh, in which he survived three of the Belgian’s match darts, Florian Hempel will face English co-favorite Stephen Bunting, who has recently played really well, a day later.
Darts professional Florian Hempel
The easiest task on paper is for Martin Schindler, who competes on the same day as Hempel and meets the Englishman Scott Williams. Williams is unseeded, but has already eliminated a top player at this World Cup, the Dutchman Danny Noppert.
The games of the four Germans at a glance
12/27: Gabriel Clemens (22nd seed) against Dave Chisnall (11/England)
12/28: Florian Hempel vs. Steve Bunting (18/England)
12/28: Martin Schindler (26) vs. Scott Williams (England)
12/29: Ricardo Pietreczko vs. Luke Humphries (3/England)