On Tuesday, two of the five German starters faced the opening hurdle at the 2024 Darts World Cup. Dragutin Horvat and Ricardo Pietreczko played their first matches. Before the Germans came to the oche and provided light and shade, 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.
At the start of the late session, Steve Beaton at least saved the English honor somewhat. “The Bronzed Adonis” gave Dutchman Wessel Nijman no real chance at 3-1.
German darts duo with light and shadow
Dragutin Horvat started a German double pack, but he couldn’t stand up to the clearly favored Belgian Mike De Decker. A weak performance from “Herkules” over a long period of time ultimately resulted in a clear 0:3. For Horvat, it was only his second participation in the most important tournament of the year after 2017.
Ricardo Pietreczko, however, had no problems as he competed against one of the few women in the field, but didn’t give Mikuru Suzuki from Japan the slightest chance.
Without throwing any big darts, “Pikachu” quickly won 3-0. Suzuki only hit doubles twice and won just one leg.
In the next round Pietreczko will face Englishman Callan Rydz. A hurdle that will be much more difficult to overcome.
Top favorite Michael van Gerwen ends the day.